Do I need to make a single 10,000 dollar deposit for them to notice? Or is it 10,000 dollars in a certain amount of time, say 1500 a day for a week? If a I make small deposits, when would they take notice of my balance?
Any deposit over $10,000 will cause the bank to file a Currency Transaction Report with the Treasury Department. If you engage in suspicious activity – for example, making many deposits of slightly less than $10,000, the bank will file a Suspicious Activity Report.
Neither report automatically triggers an investigation; tens of thousands of CTRs are filed every day. But if you raise suspicion for some other reason, or there are a lot of SARs with your name on them, then the Feds may want to have a word with you.
That’s why my student loan check took so long to clear!
I doubt it – CTRs are filed when the transaction is made, but they don’t slow down or stop the transaction itself.
Right, and they could come up in a Tax Audit. “Pardon me Mr Surbey, but you claim you make $25000/year as a wire hangar repairman, and you have no other income. What then is the source for these 12 CTRs for $15000 each?”
I was under the impression that a currency transaction report was only for cash deposits. Is that wrong?
Sort of. Yes, the CTR only involves cash, but it is filed whenever >= $10,000 is deposited or withdrawn.
The CTR should be filed for transactions involving 10k in one business day. Ideally, two deposits of $5000 would trigger this, but bank software probably won’t catch this automatically.
Banks also have to file a Monetary Instrument Log if cashier’s checks or other negotiable instruments are purchased with cash, I believe in the range of $3000 to $9999.
To clarify- only CASH. No Cash, no CTR.
Wanna bet?
It’s trivially easy for us to look at both large cash transactions made in the same day, as well as large cash transactions made within x days of each other to flag either a CTR for same-day cash activity over $10,000 or an SAR for large cash activity over that span of days.
I did it seven years ago with paper reports and it was easy then. With automation, it’s mindless, and well, automatic.
BTW: transactions don’t cancel each other out. If you deposit $8,000 on Tuesday, and withdraw $3,000 on the same day, you’ll have a CTR filed for the $11,000 aggregate. If you deposit $8,000 on Tuesday and withdraw $3,000 on Wednesday, an SAR will be filed.
How about electronic transfers? For example, I have some money in Treasury Bills through Treasury Direct. When a bill matures (say for $10,000), it is direct deposited to my bank account. If I renew, the discounted amount (say $9,900) is then withdrawn. Based on the conversation above, this should trigger two notifications. Does it?
A direct deposit is not cash.
Oops… a virtual cat walked acrss the desk and hit Post.
Direct deposit is not cash. The subject of CTRs and SARs is cold, hard, hold it in your hand, cash.
Well, in reading the actual PDF form, it does include non-cash transactions, including wire transfers, negotiable instruments, etc.
Here is the site —> http://www.fincen.gov/reg_bsaforms.html