France Is Planning To Prohibit Cash Payments Over €1,000

[matonis]

This could be good news for all my French friends over at Bitcoin Central.....

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/02/14/france-plans-to-prohibit-cash-payments-over-e1000/

[hazek]

It's almost like they're intentionally trying to drive people into Bitcoin's arms.

[robertprosper]

They are just following the trend. Spending cash in the EU is slowly becoming somewhere between strongly frowned upon and outright illegal. I cant see that changing ether within the Eurozone specifically as it becomes separate to the rest of the EU over the next couple of years. They need to try and make sure they are getting all they tax revenue they can and making cash unworkable forcing everyone onto a bank account and debit card then taxing transactions at source is the only realistic way.

[HostFat]

We are already at this step in Italy, it's already prohibit, nay you have to sign many papers.
Moreover, there is also a proposal to force merchants to accept CCs if the sum of euro is over 50 and the customer ask for use them.

[Mike Hearn]

I'd be interested to know if they have data showing that unrecorded cash transactions are a significant source of tax fraud. Having seen how regulators work, at least in America and the UK, I strongly suspect they have no idea whatsoever and have just assumed that constantly lowering thresholds will "make things better". Cost/benefit analyses don't seem to be very common in those parts of government.

[Peter Lambert]

Because bitcoins act sorta like cash, is it illegal to make a bitcoin transaction over the threshold as well?

How do they possibly think they will be able to police this? Cash transactions are untraceable, how is making a law going to make them any more traceable?

[inge]

In lands as France, Italy, Spain of Greece people don't trust governmants and governments don't trust people....

Regards, Inge

[cbeast]

2-party anonymous escrows will make it impossible for authorities to honeypot violators.

[Gabi]

I'd be interested to know if they have data showing that unrecorded cash transactions are a significant source of tax fraud. Having seen how regulators work, at least in America and the UK, I strongly suspect they have no idea whatsoever and have just assumed that constantly lowering thresholds will "make things better". Cost/benefit analyses don't seem to be very common in those parts of government.

In Italy tax evasion is very very high

[Mike Hearn]

It's not enough to say "tax evasion is high". A good government should:

1) Prove it with data.
2) Show that the area where evasion is high, is actually a significant contributor to overall tax revenues.
3) Provide a convincing calculation of the costs of implementing the proposal.
4) Show that the revenue gained is significantly higher than the costs.

In this case I am skeptical they're doing any such calculations.

[Gabi]

Oh trust me, italy has second highest tax evasion rate in europe, first position is for greece 

But France? Their evasion is much lower.

[hazek]

A good government should:

1) Prove it with data.

Since when to thugs that call themselves the government bother with pesky things such as facts? 

[Bit_Happy]

France has legal casinos what will they do?

Edit:
I'm not a gambler, but...
Posts = 777  ..  I just hit the jackpot!   

[darkmule]

This could be good news for all my French friends over at Bitcoin Central.....

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/02/14/france-plans-to-prohibit-cash-payments-over-e1000/

Good thing BTC isn't cash!

[Gabi]

A note about taxes: in europe we have a decent public health system

[goatpig]

A note about taxes: in europe we have a decent public health system

You're trolling right? French health care, for the least, is a catastrophe. I've experienced it first hand. My family too.

[Gabi]

Yeah, go try USA health system and then post again, if you managed to pay the insurance and you didn't die because you are poor and you could not pay.

[goatpig]

Yeah, go try USA health system and then post again, if you managed to pay the insurance and you didn't die because you are poor and you could not pay.

At least I'd have the opportunity to pay for it... Don't talk about French health care, just don't.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Yeah, go try USA health system and then post again, if you managed to pay the insurance and you didn't die because you are poor and you could not pay.

Okay i wasn't going to say anything except you've persisted in derailing a currency restriction thread topic into USA health care wtf??? your neuron wiring may need some looking at their chump?

Back on topic.

The damage to an economy with cash restrictions cannot be estimated, since much of the cash economy is unmeasured and unmeasurable. They are playing with some serious fire. Restricting ANY economic activity at this time is lunacy, just look at Greece, Spain and Italy, all these economies have gone into a serious tail-spin since cash transactions became restricted. These are exactly the actions of facist, totalitarian economies, and usually when going into their end-of-life phase. I would warn against investing at all in France and getting funds out of there if you have any there.

And as John M. says in the article it is the small to medium enterprises that are most likely to be trading in the cash of the size that they will impact. It will hit the working poor the hardest, not the people you want to restrict economic activity since these are major drivers towards improvement. The desperately poor and living-off-the-state poor are not going to be driving any economy anywhere.

tl;dr
Cruel, stupid move against the working poor who are trying to better themselves by the French Socialists govt.

[Frequency]

Well i also heard that they want to take the €500,- euro bill out of roulation, the reason was, that this only used by criminals and crime related transactions ...WTF.. !!!