What about credit?
 

I'm pretty sure I've got a credit card somewhere with more than $10,000 in unused credit limit. Who knows what I might do with it if the TSA lets me travel! And those folks with Centurion cards... watch out for them.

Credit cards and bank transfers are not subject to the $10,000 reporting rule. Only cash and cash-like monetary instruments are subject to the rule. The form says this:

I sent them a message asking how much I can carry $10 $100 or $1000 without having to disclose the amount to them. I also asked if it was prohibited to carry US currency on a plane without full disclosure they should let me know so that I will only carry credit and ATM cards in the future. I mentioned I did not want to end up in a screening room with law enforcement because I did not know the rules.

I wonder what is happening to this country and how long before we seem more like East Germany than West Germany during the cold war.

Absolutely wrong. It is illegal to carry more than $10,000 in or out of the country without declaring it by filling out the appropriate form. It most certainly is not illegal to transport $10,000 or $10 million anywhere under U.S. law.

Sure -- just surrender your constitutional rights. It's a lot easier.

My god, what has this country come to?

No one is required to tell a TSO anything. TSOs have no power to compel responses. TSOs have no power to detain or arrest -- they can only deny you access to the sterile area. Remember, "do you want to fly today?"

If a TSO demands that you answer his questions, either say nothing, respond, "none of your business," or walk away.

If a TSO attempts to detain you, call a policeman and have him arrested for false imprisonment.

If a TSO touches you without permission, call a policeman and have him arrested for battery.

If a TSO tries to take your cash on the theory that it is contraband, take it back. If the TSO puts up a physical struggle, call a policeman and have him arrested for robbery.

Enough, already. The only legal authority given to TSOs is to conduct a voluntary search, i.e. one to which you have voluntarily submitted by presenting yourself at the WTMD. TSOs have no police powers whatsoever.

When in doubt, call a policeman. Unlike TSOs, policemen are there to protect you from wrong-doers, and have a variety of police powers, including that of arrest, at their disposal.

Correct, you don't have to tell the TSA anything. But they don't have to let you on the plane, either.

I'm an ex IRS employee.

Transactions of $10,000 or less must be reported on IRS Form 8300.

However, withdrawing your own money from your bank is not a transaction.

It appears that TSA has arbitrarily decided that $10,000 is contraband without the niceties of a statute declaring that it is, or should be considered, contraband.

Good luck in getting an explanation from our big brother TSA. .




"If, in a 12-month period, you receive more than $10,000 in cash from one buyer as a result of a transaction in your trade or business, you must report it to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on Form 8300, Report of Cash Payments Over $10,000 Received in a Trade or Business.

You must file Form 8300 to report cash paid to you if it is:

1.

Over $10,000,
2.

Received as:
1.

One lump sum of over $10,000,
2.

Installment payments that cause the total cash received within 1 year of the initial payment to total more than $10,000, or
3.

Other previously unreportable payments that cause the total cash received within a 12-month period to total more than $10,000,
3.

Received in the course of your trade or business,
4.

Received from the same buyer (or agent), and
5.

Received in a single transaction or in related transactions (defined later).

What Is Cash?

Cash is:

1.

The coins and currency of the United States (and any other country), and
2.

A cashier's check, bank draft, traveler's check, or money order you receive, if it has a face amount of $10,000 or less and you receive it in:
2.
1.

A designated reporting transaction (defined later), or
2.

Any transaction in which you know the payer is trying to avoid the reporting of the transaction on Form 8300.

Cash may include a cashier's check even if it is called a “treasurer's check” or “bank check.”

Cash does not include a check drawn on an individual's personal account.

A cashier's check, bank draft, traveler's check, or money order with a face amount of more than $10,000 is not treated as cash. These items are not defined as cash and you do not have to file Form 8300 when you receive them because, if they were bought with currency, the bank or other financial institution that issued them must file a report on FinCEN Form 104."

TSA is an agency of the United States government.

I think they really got it backwards...

All passengers should be encouraged to carry at least $10,000 cash
with them when flying.

It will probabaly help the economy. :)

Thats essentially what I said. I left out the "declared" bit.

No. Believe it or not, I work for CBP. I was careless and left off the "declared" word.

Perhaps confusing....
 

What you said here troubles me and it may simply be the way it's written... I just read the instructions for IRS Form 8300 at this link. The instructions for the form read:

"Who must file. Each person engaged in a trade or business who, in the course of that trade or business, receives more than $10,000 in cash in one transaction or in two or more related transactions, must file Form 8300. Any transactions conducted between a payer (or its agent) and the recipient in a 24-hour period are related transactions. Transactions are considered related even if they occur over a period of more than 24 hours if the recipient knows, ..." (emphasis mine)

Notably, it says: "...receives more than $10,000 in cash..." and then it also says:

"Voluntary use of Form 8300. Form 8300 may be filed voluntarily for any suspicious transaction (see Definitions on page 4) for use by FinCEN and the IRS, even if the total amount does not exceed $10,000..." where "A suspicious transaction is a transaction in which it appears that a person is attempting to cause Form 8300 not to be filed, or to file a false or incomplete form..."

So, where I read you saying "$10,000 or less must be report on IRS form 8300" I trust you're not saying "if you have transaction of less than $10,000 and think it might look like a "suspicious transaction" the way to report that transaction is on form 8300" not that one MUST report all cash transactions, even those under $10,000, right?

Now, going back to the topic at hand, one might argue that Steve Bierfeldt had an amount of cash which was less than $10,000 and could have then voluntarily reported that on behalf of the political campaign if it would appear that he was trying to circumvent the filing of that form by carrying less than $10,000 (i.e.: multiple cash transactions of $9,999.99) BUT in Bierfeldt's case his possession of about $4700 is nowhere near $9,9999 AND that sum was given him in multiple smaller transactions (i.e.: bumper sticker sales).

So, just so we're clear, (and while I'm not suggesting that's what sfspec is actually suggesting), I can't see where filing or not having filed something like Form 8300 or its provisions supports any reasonable suspicion on the part of the TSA guy in the underlying Bierfeldt incident.

In theory, yes. The only case involving the TSA to date which has been submitted to the Supremes is the Gilmore (qv) appeal. They declined to hear that; and I imagine they will continue to decline all others.

Which makes you a real LEO, i.e. someone who has had the training, education and experience to be entrusted with police powers. TSOs aren't remotely in your league, either legally or practically.

An answer and a challenge to TSA people on this board
 

Going back to the original questions as posted, At this point, let me refer back to OD-400-54-2: Discovery of Contraband During the Screening Process where it says if the TSA screener finds "contraband," "during the screening process that is not a TSA Prohibited Item, the matter should be referred to the local Law Enforcement Officers as appropriate. An Enforcement Investigative Report should not be initiated. I take that to read, they are NOT to conduct "an investigation" on their own, as if they had power or authority to do that, they are directed by that memo to call in the appropriate real law enforcement agency.

In Bierfeldt's case, the TSA screener kept pursuing the question "why are you carrying that much money?" which is (a) clearly an "investigation" and (b) is, in light of his admission that if Bierfeldt had answered his question, he'd have been allowed to pass all he had to go on. So, before going on to the underlying question by triehle, was there any rational basis to detain Bierfeldt? Given what we know objectively about this (from the recording) the answer is clear: no. Bierfeldt was detained solely as a function of a clash of ego versus someone standing up for his personal rights. It's no more complex than that. Now to the underlying questions:

"Must" they deny him passage through the checkpoint? I'd say NO, I think there is no "must" involved, instead they have no basis for detaining him and, lacking some other actual "prohibited item" he should have been allowed to pass and board his flight unmolested.

Now, I'd also say if you add to your altered fact set that there was something else for them to act on (i.e.: a boarding pass or ticket for a different airline for an onward trip from DCA to someplace like, for example, Cuba or some drug paraphernalia - under the terms of the memo - they should immediately call over the local police or appropriate Federal LE. Without then straying into the debate over the role of the TSA, focusing solely on the memo's instructions, the screener blew it, he acted beyond the scope of his job and the scope of the memo. I'm also then left to wonder, since we know there was one screener and two LEOs involved, where was the screener's actual supervisor? Why wasn't he involved and why didn't he (ok, or she) act on this at the secondary inspection point rather than take this to that next level??

I'd say yes assuming he had something else to go on. However, he objectively did not. The screener found money - it was less than the trigger threshold set forth in "the memo" - the screener pushed this for no other reason than because Bierfeldt questioned his authoratiiiiii. IF we adopt that the screener had something else to go on, then yes, the memo requires him to call in LEO but not file an investigative report which would seem, by extension, for him to hand the guy over to real LE, explain why he (the screener) has suspicions, and then go back to his job of rifling people's luggage. Without a doubt, that is not what happened. He remained involved and "contributed" for the entire 23-plus minute detention.

In effect, yes. In reality, what was instituted was a requirement to kowtow to a screener.

What interests me most in this is and the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ying-cash.html thread is that the TSA folks on here are willing to ramble on about what they've done or that they're willing to call in the local police or CBP about someone with a "wad" of cash but none have directly defended the actions of the TSA guy in St Louis. I'm already on record saying I think the first real LEo involved should be hung out to dry for his misconduct but this would have never got to that point if the original screener had recognized he had no justification for escalating this to the point it was.

As an extension of this question, I want to hear just one TSA/TSO type point to a moment on the recording that suggests they had anything, anything at all, to go on here that would lead the reasonable man to call in an appropriate law enforcement agency in the context of this memo.

Finally, a grownup in this thread! Yes, you need to report it and fill out a simple form. But if you're caught with the money without reporting it, you may get in trouble. Not trouble as in breaking-the-law-going-to-jail-trouble, but your travel plans may be disrupted.

How to avoid this problem? Simply have the money wired by your bank so that you don't have to carry it. And if you feel you hate technology and banks and still want to carry over $10K in cash with you (like a caveman), then simply report it, fill out the form and be done with it. Unless the money is crime-related there's no reason why you wouldn't report it in the first place.

^

Thanks, Red! You are absolutely right. I did not understand that the part about "not initiating an Enforcement Investigative Report" meant NO INVESTIGATION, just call in the real LEO and get back to "work." Thanks for the clarification.

I'm with you. I cannot wait for a TSO to explain that their hands are tied in the Bierfeldt case, SOP or something even more SSI-ish requires them to drag liberty freaks like Bierfeldt into a small, windowless room, because the guy clearly has something to hide.

transporting u.s. dollars
 

with regard to international travel, an individual may transport any amount of cash without interference from homeland security/border patrol if the amount does not exceed US$10,000. if the amount is US10$,000 or more, then the traveler is required to complete a specific u.s. customs form and submit prior to exiting or entering the u.s. i have personally experienced being stopped by u.s. customs inspectors on the jetway leading to the aircraft. they asked my wife and i to step aside (not that there were many people behind us because it was the first class jetway) and began asking us a series of questions. when it came to the amount of cash we each were transporting, we responded that we were carrrying $9,900 each, just below the threshold of having to file the u.s. customs form. on another occassion, i carried more than US$30,000 but had filled out and submitted the appropriate u.s. customs form declaring the full amount. on that occassion, no inspector approached or even looked at me during the boarding process. i would caution anyone who attempts to circumvent the law will more than likely be caught. there are u.s. customs/homeland security inspectors that are stationed in strategic foreign gateways just for this sort of thing.