Banking with your local friendly banker has become "institutionalized" in our thinking. Few people are aware that a bank account is a profile of their life.
The IRS Special Agent's Manual states that the testimony of the taxpayer himself via the form 1040 tax filing and especially his bank account are the best sources of evidence (against the "taxpayer" of course).
In other words, your testimony and your bank account mean self-incrimination. This is worse than the old Star Chamber and a direct violation of the 5th Amendment.
Your bank isn't your friend. Even if the people at the bank want to be loyal to you, they're required by law to report what you're doing to government agencies — and they're not even allowed to tell you when they do it.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) was established in 1990 by order of the Secretary of the Treasury. It seemed innocuous enough at first. But as new responsibilities and powers were given to the bureau, it became a very big deal.
Banks have long been required to file currency transaction reports when individuals deal in cash. Every cash transaction over $10,000 must be reported.
Governments want to be able to track money. Since cash is harder to track, government agencies want to be notified so they can look into cases in which people deposit or withdraw large sums of cash. And government men especially want to know about it if you try and preserve your privacy by breaking up your transactions. It's called the crime of "structuring," and if you do it you'll automatically be branded a money launderer and likely charged with a crime. But with the passage of the USA (Un)Patriot Act in 2001, the government has greatly stepped up its snooping into your financial affairs.
The (Un)Patriot Act required FinCEN to establish a secure network that allows the agency to keep tabs on what anyone is doing at any of the 27,000 financial institutions in the U.S. This sinister system allows government snoops to have real-time access to your information and to what you're doing. If you're on their radar screen, they can know everything you're doing. Your information is identified, centralized and then evaluated by various agencies in law enforcement.
Financial institutions are scared to death of being fined or even shut down by the federal government for being out of compliance with provisions of the (Un)PatriotAct. So, just to be safe, they are busily sending in information to FinCEN about their customers and filing reports on any customer activity the Feds may potentially regard as "unusual."
FinCEN reports show that banks are turning in their customers for investigation by FinCEN and the IRS for such "offenses" as making heavy use of an automated teller machine, for receiving or sending international wire transfers or because the bank does not know the source of deposited money.
You think your bank account is secure — you are told, after all, it is guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — but the IRS can wipe it out with the touch of a button and doesn't even have to inform you it's doing so, and the bank is not required to inform you.
I have an acquaintance whose personal and business accounts were wiped clean by the IRS after it rejected a technical aspect of his business tax filing even though he was working with the IRS in good faith to resolve the dispute. But what's worse, the IRS wiped clean his daughter's account as well, even though she did not live with him and was away at college. The business owner didn't know his own account was empty until his daughter called to complain that her money had been stolen.
It took him months to get this straightened out and he had to operate the whole time without access to any of the money he had on deposit — even his savings. Try buying food and necessities or paying your bills when that happens.
Nor is a safe deposit box secure, as many have found. There is all manner of precedent for seizing, blocking and breaking and entering safe deposit boxes.
Cash money in a safety deposit box or anywhere is presumed to be illegal. This is the excuse to seize it, saying it is your burden to prove that you paid taxes on it, that it is not illegal proceeds from drugs or that it is not laundered money. Guilty until proven innocent is contrary to American jurisprudence and Bill of Rights but is the case in any dealing with the IRS and most other government agencies.
On the fine print of your safe deposit box contract you will likely find something like this: "Lessee acknowledges that the safe deposit box is not intended to store without limitations, such things as domestic or foreign currency whether in paper, coin, or other form."
Federal rules say a bank can drill a box without permission if there's a court order, search warrant, delinquent rental fee, request from estate administrators or if the bank is closing a branch. In other words, if the bank reports your banking activities as suspicious for whatever reason, government enforcers can rifle the contents of your safe deposit box without you even being informed.
Asset forfeiture by government at all levels means that your assets are vulnerable without your ever being charged with a crime. Asset forfeiture is loved by law enforcement — including chief drug warrior, the feckless fossil of an Attorney General Jeff Sessions — for the so-called "War on Drugs."
But even if government doesn't steal your valuables from you under specious circumstances, someone else may. Bank of America seems to be experiencing a rash of safe deposit box thefts of late.
Recently a California woman who had retired from BoA learned that the safe deposit box that she had maintained for 16 years had simply vanished.
"I was in shock. I was just, like, what happened to my box," Susan Nomi told CBS Sacramento. "They don't have an answer. They don't have an answer. They say, 'Thanks for letting us know.'"
Another BoA customer, Wendy Woo, said her belongings were taken out of her safe deposit box and shipped to her by the bank, as ZeroHedge reports:
"Everything was dumped in a plastic bag," said Woo. In the process, a ring went missing and a necklace was damaged in the process (sic). "Safe deposit box... that's what it's for, safe," she said, only not when the safe belongs to Bank of America. A second family complained that it too had gotten th…
Nor are these the only ways banks steal from you with government sanction. Fractional reserve banking is a massive Ponzi scheme that makes what Charles Ponzi did look like penny ante poker, as I explained in "How banks and the government rob you blind."
Banks hold only a fraction of your money in an account, and they do not have reserves on hand to cover all the debt owed them by their customers and all the savings customers have deposited. In other words, banks are bankrupt, except for their ability to "create" money.
We recommend you avoid safe deposit boxes for anything of value. A fireproof safe secreted and secured on your property is a far better option for things of value. You should keep no more money in the bank than is necessary for paying one or two months of bills. You should keep some cash on hand — in case of a bank run, power outage or significant disruption in the financial system — and keep the rest of your holdings in gold and silver in your possession.
For more information on preserving your assets in these uncertain times we urge you to consider our "Ultimate 'End of the Dollar' Defense Manual," available here.
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