Calling all in the finance sector...something to consider..

[IPD]

I was reading the news this morning about the mandatory reporting of foreign bank accounts, held by Americans, with balances over $50,000. There was also an article about a woman who is in trouble with the IRS for "structuring" her bank deposits--breaking them up so that they don't exceed the $10,000 mandatory reporting figure. And this got me thinking about another "million-dollar" idea. (And let me emphasize that I'm ONLY an idea man...figuring out how to implement something has never been my forte).

Imagine a computer program that was linked to all your finances. But instead of something that simply links your credit cards & utilities to your bank account, something that autonomously controls your cash flow. Now under existing rules, there are a lot of strings attached to high-value bank accounts. What if instead of having 1 account with $1,000,000--a person had 200 accounts with $5,000 balances? Now if this program was linked to all accounts, it could be set to make deposits. And here's where the neat part is. If you wanted to deposit $100,000 into this system, the program could choose a random number of those accounts and deposit a random dollar amount in each. For example, let's say that it picked 27 accounts at random (out of those 200) and then selected a random amount to deposit into each account. Furthermore, it could be set to stagger these deposits over the course fo 24 hours, so that they appear at random intervals and do not correspond to one another.

Now I realize that this would ipso-facto preclude higher interest rates associated with higher-balance bank accounts. But what it would also do is allow withdrawals/deposits to occur with virtually no "alarm bells" going off to those who are monitoring such transactions. And of course, if we're talking about certain types of foreign banks, there will be minimal/no tax assessments on them--so the overhead labor required to maintain said accounts would be very low. Additionally, it would make seizure of assets almost impossible...because they would be spread out over a large swath (varying banks, varying accounts, varying amounts).

The only hurdles I see to this becoming a reality are 1st, the hassle of setting up the requisite number of bank accounts required (hard for a lone individual, not hard at all for a company or a team of dedicated people). Plus, if the accounts are generated under differing names, it is yet another level of complexity that becomes difficult to "spy through". And 2nd, a reliable method of generating the initial deposits has to be developed (how do you get paper money into electronic form?) This could possibly be partially alleviated by a "throwaway account" or a "gateway account". This would be an account designed to be minimally traceable--either used for only a brief period of time (eg. a few total transactions) before being terminated, or multiple "gateway accounts" which are only linked to a handful of the total accounts. At that point, transactions between accounts would be handled by this program; so deposits could be spread out between gateway accounts...where the program takes over and spreads it to the four-winds. By cycling through gateway accounts, it would be increasingly difficult to flag someone for "structuring" payments. And layer upon layer of accounts could be added, with no static ties between any layers.

Basically, this would function somewhat like a RAID 1+0+1+0+etc--but for bank accounts. But the links would all be electronically managed and--due to variations built into the program--would be exceedingly difficult to trace or link together.

So tell me, what do you think? Is something like this truly feasible? I feel that with the right banks, and in the right circumstance--something like this could be used for great evil--or potentially for good (though I'm not entirely sure how "good" would factor in...yet). At the very least, if it works it should provide a level of anonymity that has to my knowledge never before been available.

Thoughts?

[GTOJOE]

The problem I see is what you already touched on. How do you get the money into an account first. To open these accounts you would need identification etc. All this is traceable. You would be better off buying an ATM machine and setting it up as merchant funded. This means you put your own money into the atm machine. When ever a transaction is performed you are reimbursed by a financial institution. Clean money from a bank. Fill atm with dirty money. Bank pays you clean money. The problem then arises though if you get audited and they want to know how you are funding the ATM cash

[j2k4]

I guess no one is into this, Carlos.

Of course, when a Mexican starts talking about this stuff, everyone thinks he's a drug dealer, so...

[donniekak]

An individual is responsible to report all foreign accounts that together total over $50,000.

This is from Forbes.
FATCA presents you a stark choice if you hold more than $50,000 in “foreign financial assets”: You can bank at a foreign bank that coughs up information about account balances, deposits and withdrawals to the IRS… or else you can subject yourself to a 30% withholding tax on the income and gross proceeds from any U.S. assets in your foreign account. Should any of this violate local laws, the bank is required to close your account.

[UTRacerX9]

Programs like this already exist, to an extent, and it's all done legally. We had several personal investment advisors running programs like this to help manage their omnibus accounts, when they had large numbers of clients.

Basically, each omnibus account held at a brokerage could have 99 sub accounts set up, each for a different, real person. All those accounts were setup with real SS#'s, bank account info, age, DOB, etc. At the time, it was possible to have 3 bank accounts listed for each sub account. All of these people, when they wanted to deposit money, they would simply contact their investment advisor, and send him a check or wire the funds from some other account they had. It's no longer legal for them to accept deposits in cash.

Now at that point, it's entirely in the hands of the investment advisor. Once that money hits the general omnibus account, it's up to the advisor to route it to the proper sub account for the right person, and this is where the program is used. Technically speaking, with multiple sub accounts, a person could easily get under the $10k figure (most banks no longer use that figure however, the figure was $3k last I heard.) It was a method used by a lot of rich people to hide their financial deposits and withdrawals, but even though it adds layers of complexity, the IRS could still unravel all the money movement if they were investigating someone and took enough time to do so. The only foolproof method would be to have a similar system set in place in other countries as well, because it would take years for the US government to get approval for the bank records of all the accounts of someone, and by then the money would be long gone and shifted to yet another system of omnibus accounts in yet another country.

This was also how someone like Madoff was able to keep the majority of his clients happy... he moved money from one account to the other on various days, in between various people, for differing amounts of the actual deposits to make it look like investment gains from sales. The only person who really benefits from a system like this is an unscrupulous financial advisor, who can take money from wherever and whoever and run, or a rich criminal who has that FA afraid for his life if he runs.

[IPD]

I guess no one is into this, Carlos.

Of course, when a Mexican starts talking about this stuff, everyone thinks he's a drug dealer, so...

well it's just one of those things that randomly springs into mind. like....what if Anonymous was actually a shill working for the government to conduct false-flag operations against the enemies of the USA?

[HilbillyHomeboy]

10k is still the de facto figure for triggering a CTR. Regardless, you can still be flagged for suspicious activity despite being under the 10k threshold. Nearly any idea anyone comes up with, the bank has already seen it. You will get caught.

Jeremy

[j2k4]

well it's just one of those things that randomly springs into mind. like....what if Anonymous was actually a shill working for the government to conduct false-flag operations against the enemies of the USA?

Well, sure - enemies declared or 'un-'.

Actually, the only places financial my mind wanders these days is to how sweet it would be to have a novel idea for making cash in a market that traditionally favors NASCAR strategies and where everyone fancies himself a crewchief, and it took so long to type that I forgot the other ones.