How much money can I lodge in a bank?

Saskia

I run my own business part-time and over the past couple of weeks cheques that were owed from clients as far back as January finally came through. Now the thing is they all add up to quite a bit of money and Ive read before that if you lodge more than 5 thousand euros with a bank they start to ask questions and any more than 8 and they flag your account. Is this just an urban myth or does anyone know the facts?

stepbar

Not wanting to go into details (for many numerous reasons), I think you should keep your business finances seperate from those of your personal finances (i.e open a business a/c). Maybe you are doing this at the moment. Doing this should remove any suspicions that the bank etc may have.

unclebill98

I'll not comment on bank procedure, but if its all above board then it does not matter what you lodge.

+1 on using 2 accounts. Does not have to be a business account if you want to avoid them stupid fees.

The Rooster

There was a rule brought in recently whereby the banks are obliged to inform Revenue on an annual basis of everybody who earns interest of more than €635 a year (backdated to 2005 - except from credit unions, where the reporting requirement only begins from 2008).

Revenue say they are about to start a process of investigating everybody who had a bank account with €100,000 or more at any time in 2005, 2006 or 2007.

If you have paid tax on all your money then you have nothing to worry about. But if you had over €100k in the bank at any time from 2005 onwards and some of it was not properly taxed, then you'd wanna think about making a voluntary disclosure to reduce penalties (10% penalties if you disclose, up to 100% if Revenue catch you), avoid publication and avoid possible prosecution. The deadline for telling Revenue you are going to make a disclosure is 15 September 2008, the deadline for actually making the full disclosure and paying your outstanding tax, interest and penalties is 15 January 2009.

dotsman

If you aren't a criminal, you have nothing to fear and can lodge as much as you want. It's as simple as that.

Toots

stepbar wrote: »

Not wanting to go into details (for many numerous reasons), I think you should keep your business finances seperate from those of your personal finances (i.e open a business a/c). Maybe you are doing this at the moment. Doing this should remove any suspicions that the bank etc may have.

It'll also make it a whole lot easier from a book-keeping POV. Most banks do a business account package with discounted fees etc, and can offer you lots of advice on running the business etc.

ifwah

Usually a lodgement over 6,000 will have to be double checked by a member of management(thats the limit in our bank anyway) but once all the cheques are made out to you and not crossed etc theres no problem.