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Europe limits anonymous cash payments to €3k and all cash payments to €10k. Pirate party reacts. (www.evz.de)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/europe@feddit.org

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683421

The EU has quietly imposed cash limits EU-wide:

€3k limit on anonymous payments

€10k limit regardless (link which also lists state-by-state limits).

From the jailed¹ article:

An EU-wide maximum limit of €10 000 is set for cash payments, which will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money.

It will also strip dignity and autonomy from non-criminal adults, you nannying assholes!

In addition, according to the provisional agreement, obliged entities will need to identify and verify the identity of a person who carries out an occasional transaction in cash between €3 000 and €10 000.

The hunt for “money launderers” and “terrorists” is not likely meaningfully facilitated by depriving the privacy of people involved in small €3k transactions. It’s a bogus excuse for empowering a police surveillance state. It’s a shame how quietly this apparently happened. No news or chatter about it.

¹ the EU’s own website is an exclusive privacy-abusing Cloudflare site inaccessible several demographics of people. Sad that we need to rely on the website of a US library to get equitable access to official EU communication.

update

The Pirate party’s reaction is spot on. They also point out that cryptocurrency is affected. Which in the end amounts to forced banking.

#warOnCash

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[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Cash has its benefits, I never said otherwise. But said benefits are for the individuals.

Nonsense. The benefits are for both sides of the transaction. I just listed several benefits to merchants - how did you miss that? If cash did not benefit merchants, there would be no reason for cash acceptance.

Shops use it as an excuse to avoid paying taxes,

Not necessarily.

and pricing differently is not noble at all.

Of course it’s noble. They are proactively supporting the ethical side of the #warOnCash. The few businesses that offer cash discounts are practicing the ethical duty to protect cash by encouraging people to carry it and use it.

You mention tipping, well good thing this is Europe then, where many places already did away with this stupid custom.

The example I gave of the waitress refusing cash back (because she needed it to tip the kitchen staff) was in Netherlands.

Tipping is actually increasing in Europe and it’s because of electronic payment that it’s happening. The payment terminals are coded to prompt payers to choose how much they would like to tip. So in Netherlands, you have a wait staff standing there in front of customers as they face this prompt. And the prompt is coded for US norms (10%, 15%, 20%). Customers feel awkward about refusing that prompt in front of the waitstaff, and of course the high percentages effectively mislead customers in Europe about local customs. In fact I have never seen a payment terminal in European restaurants that is coded for local norms (tipping €1 or €2 flat). They are always coded for US customs when they support tipping at all.

This swindle is not accidental. European restaurant owners are installing these kinds of terminals deliberately to stimulate high tip revenue so they have less pressure to pay high wages. The swindle would not be possible in a cash-based scenario.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a payment terminal where you can freely enter a tip amount. But certainly with cash, payers have full control and autonomy.

Covid relief packages for restaurants in France were based on declared income. I’ll let you guess why some owners complained they did not get enough help during the crisis.

That’s fair enough. What’s your complaint?

but I won’t feel bad for hypocrites profiting from my tax money without giving their own share.

You should feel guilty for the bogus assumption that everyone is a tax evader and then advocating for collateral damage to the people who are helping the fight against forced banking.