Brian, here in Spain, it is the way life has always been. There is
the “on the books” market, and the much larger underground black
market. With the non existent economy at the present we are slowly
being forced to either be illegal, or close due to lack of funds.
Guess what everyone decides to do. The government here has forced
this onto the businesses and then wonders why no one declares their
incomes or deductions. Surprise. It works. A completely submerged
business community. If you are really clever, you can close shop,
collect unemployment, and work undeclared. That is scoring 10.
The country is only a step from bankruptsy. Rosey outlook.
Yes, the law says companies like Stuller must "implement an Anti
Money Laundering record keeping policy" but it doesn't say
Stuller's customers must give up their Social Security numbers to
be able to buy from Stuller. Nor does it say Stuller must collect
SS#'s.
Well one of the truly delightful things about this is that you are
required to “Identify” your customers but the law as congress passed
it does not define exactly how you are to do this. But given that
the IRS it the agency auditing AML compliance and the IRS uses SSN’s
and Taxpayer ID #'s to identify people and corporations then it is a
logical assumption on the part of companies when developing their
AML plans that the SSN or TIN are the necessary ID’s. But until the
IR"S has done more audits and there are rulings about the adequacy of
various programs it is hard to know exactly what is needed. Welcome
to the delights of the Patriot Act.
Just eating lunch when my big fat feline was begging again. Totally
neglecting his job of holding the rug down. Maybe a quarter a week
would inspire him to work harder. OOPS, need a 1099 and the cat
doesn’t have a SSN Lots of paper work for me (the cat is
illiterate). An inconvience for me to do the paper work on both cats.
There must be 1/2 a billion un-documented pets in the country. And
little wild animals who picked up the dime you dropped at the
picnic…
If those idiots are going to get paranoid about the number of times
they can tax the same $ then maybe it is time for us the people to
teach them about real paranoia. No deadly force (well a few paper
cuts and included staples) but a billion forms with some typos might
make them think twice next time.
This is obviously not a new tax. In fact it’s deceptive to call it
that. Gains on gold are as taxable as any financial gain. Or would we
rather increase income holding to alleviate this insead? I would say
not. Pay on your gains, write off your losses.
As with most laws the stuff that Congress writes is taken by agencies
and rules are drafted that define how the law is to be implemented.
The best info I know of on this particular law is from the JVC but
you need to be a member to get more info than is on the FAQ’s on
their website. I have not bought the AML kit they offer but I have
heard the JVC staff present talks on this topic. As far as I can tell
if you are not an exempted retailer the law requires that you
establish an AML program, appoint compliance officers, train your
staff and keep records on your customers and vendors transactions
but how you do all of this is left up to you but, you must keep
records to show the IRS if they decide to audit you. There are fines
and penalties if you do not implement a program or if it is deemed
insufficient.
I gave up on them, and now join those who say Stuller is not very
user friendly. They are business friendly, they are not however in
the business of suppling hobbyist.
Not about the main part of the thread (which I haven’t read much,
anyway) . Stuller is a fine place, but Jim’s words are true. A bit of
a storyis that a guy came around looking for a jeweler to do menial
bench labor - assembly, sizing and setting on the premises. He said
he was “A Stuller Store, essentially.” Not that Stuller has stores,
but he just used them as his stock room, and his whole store is
Stuller inventory. Ingwer, Ptk, others are the same. I worked for a
major supplier to Zales, for a time. Just some insight…
Yea, I know, but having worked as a political analyst in a commodity
trading syndicate for many years before becoming a silversmith in
the mid eighties, I have seen how much government involvement is
already in place in banking. I don’t think the step to government
banking (really non-banking) is nearly as big as most people might
think. Sure hope I’m wrong; and will be glad to say so.
SSN is not identification. I suspect the real reason Stuller wants
the SSN (or EID) is that they run a credit check.
Stuller doesn’t do a credit check. I tried to get them to do one on
me so I could get better terms, but they refused. I think they try to
take SS#'s because this is the way management there d to implement
the Anti Money Laundering record keeping policy required of them.
They probably believed using the unique SS# was a good way to ID
their American customers. And I’m pretty sure that 98% of their
customers freely give up their numbers.
I wonder how many people will be making multiple $500-$599
purchases...
Per year? It's not just for every large purchase. It's $600 or
more per calendar year. Period.
Since there is no way to know how much any customer is going to
purchase over a year’s time, even a business selling only
lower-priced items would have to record SSI IDs for every customer
and transaction, which is absurd.
I’m not anti-government and want to do what I’m supposed to, but I
like Jeff Demand’s idea “…a billion forms with some typos might
make them think twice next time.”
even a business selling only lower-priced items would have to
record SSI IDs for every customer and transaction, which is
absurd.
Not if your POS software keeps track and requires the ID when
purchases go over the limit. Pretty trivial, actually, if you keep a
database anyway.
I'm not anti-government and want to do what I'm supposed to, but I
like Jeff Demand's idea "...a billion forms with some typos might
make them think twice next time."
Nah, they’d just hire a new bunch of bureaucrats, who would each
hire a staff. The guys at the top would get raises for their added
responsibility, and the administration would brag about how many
jobs they created.
As I understand it (dimly), the onus is on a business owner to rat
out his suppliers, not his customers.
It’s up to your customers to decide if they want to rat you out. Oh,
wait, 50 cents says that the credit card processors will rat
everybody out, and probably charge a “compliance fee” in the balance.
(Cash economy anybody??)
But meanwhile, back in less-cynical-land, there’s no requirement to
keep track of who buys from you. You only need to worry about your
suppliers.
FWIW,
Brian.
For a lesson in how tough it is to do away with cash, do a google
search on the various local barter currencies that’ve been popping
up lately.
Lots of paper work for me (the cat is