I was at a friend's house and he had a roll of cash that was probably 60k. I told him to deposit it so a) it wouldn't get stolen and b) it's costing him a few grand a year because of forgone interest in a money market account. He said he was afraid of it getting confiscated by some authority, along the lines of nightmares you hear about with civil asset forfeiture if he couldn't prove beyond all doubt where it came from. That seems tinfoil-hattish to me, but I've never actually deposited that much cash. When I used to play live poker I remember depositing six or seven grand a month for several months and nothing ever came of it. But even if he went that route (which is technically 'structuring' anyway), he'd still be losing thousands in interest income.

So I'm sure he'd have to fill out a CTR, but I don't really know what that entails. And does anyone know if depositing tens of thousands in cash is just a guaranteed audit? This guy runs an auto detailing business, so I assume that's where most of this came from, but I don't know. I don't want to tell him that everything will be fine and then he ends up getting audited or has some suits show up at his house or something.

sounds like the cash is of sketch origin and providing this advice has extreme asymmetric payoff where you gain little benefit/appreciation if all goes right and receive all the blame if anything goes wrong

i deposited $37k last year, $25k recently. the bank employees just treat it like a normal deposit and did not ask any questions, they deal with these amounts all the time. The only difference between this and a $20 deposit is I had to write my SSN on a sticky note for the employee to fill out the CTR, each time i was in the bank for no longer than 5 minutes. $10k is not that much money anymore so the IRS likely gets thousands and thousands of CTRs every day. Your friend's odds of an audit probably go up but they are not going to audit every single person whose name is on a CTR.

The risk of losing the money in a fire or to theft/robbery is much higher than the risk of it being confiscated by some government agency.

Deposit like 10 ... you sold your watch or something

and i would buy gold oz. / eagles on craigslist/offerup with the rest... at a safe place of course.

not financial advice =p

Huh, derailing the thread, but I never thought a one dimensional object could be assymmetrical, but I suppose that if you define a center, like neutrality, then along the number line this would be assymetrical.

Do it from time to time, no problems at all.

Zero issues... do it in small chunks <5k

this will raise way more red flags than doing it all at once or 2 deposits of 30k

Is he a poker player? Couldn't read anywhere in the OP how he got this money, do you know with 100% certainty that it is legal, or do you just trust him because he is your friend?

If it is poker indeed, I would deposit the highest amount that would look normal, 10K maybe? Then keep depositing the winnings from now on, use the remaining cash to pay expenses, buy a safe, and just swallow the lost interest as a financial education tuition (on what not to do in the future).

not really, no...

It would be "structuring" technically.

https://www.irs.gov/irm/part4/irm_04-026-013

It also simulates taxable activity. 20K inbound? You probably sold your personal car, no sales tax. Twenty 1000$ inbound transfers? Looks like you are in the business of selling 1000$ goods, sales tax applies.

Bank doesn't care about sales tax.

I do this several times throughout the year withdrawing and depositing 40-70k.

They ask for my ID and ask me what my job is and where I work. That's it.

It's never been a big deal.

Just deposited 20k yesterday. They usually try to sell me on their investment products or savings accounts, but other than that no big deal at all.

Finnish perspective: Hero is a hungover, red-eyed teenager with greasy hair, depositing money won at the Amsterdam casino

"Hi I'd like to deposit these 15000€ in creased and wine stained bills"
"What's the origin of the cash?"
"I, uhh, had it... I mean, leftover from the Amsterdam trip" <- this street was flawlessly played if I say so myself
"Okay the money is in your account now, have a nice day"

I don't really know how badly you need to fumble this to even raise a red flag, let alone get in confiscation / legal levels of trouble.