Uncle Sam wants you… to explain this $50 cash deposit

In 2006, it’ll be a whole lot harder to cheat on your taxes, even accidentally. In fact, you’ll also have to field calls from the government over odd deposits that you make, e.g. a deposit at an odd time of the month, or a cash deposit, or a deposit made from a foreign bank, etc. That’s because, thanks to the PATRIOT act, banks are spending billions on highly sophisticated, government-mandated anti-money laundering (AML) software that will track every last transaction of every last customer in order to build up individual customer profiles and look for “suspicious” activity. And when they find some suspicious activity, they’re going to want an explanation out of you, regardless of whether or not you fit any sort of terrorist profile.