Jerry Taylor explains the $10,000 cash deposit reporting rule: banks must report deposits over that amount to FinCEN with your account and Social Security number. Depositing over $10,000 is legal, but breaking it into smaller deposits to avoid reporting, called structuring, is a federal crime that can result in fines and legal consequences.
Chapters
If you deposit over $10,000 at one time at your bank, they're going to have to report you to the federal government. The bank will have to file a report with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and that report will include your account number, your Social Security number, and your taxpayer identification number. Now, depositing over $10,000 at one time is not illegal. It just means that the bank has to report it. It happens every day, and as long as there's no illegal purpose associated with doing that, you're fine. But you may not know this. Let's say you've got $50,000 you want to deposit in the bank. And because you don't want the bank to report any of it, you make several deposits of smaller amounts of money, less than $10,000. That, my friends, is considered to be illegal. That is what is known as structuring. And if a bank thinks that's what you're doing, they may well report that. And structuring your deposits like that in order to avoid reports to the federal government can result in fines, penalties, and legal consequences.
