
I'm pretty sure they could have just weighed them to arrive at a count with an acceptable level of accuracy.
There are supposedly two certainties in life – death and taxes – and while we've never seen death by wheelbarrow, Nick Stafford from Cedar Buff, Virginia, has sorted us out on the latter. Stafford had got into a dispute with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and, seemingly displeased by how difficult it was to contact the …
Right... fakes, of course! Why didn't I think of that!!?
Question: does the story sound to you like he couldn't afford the money? That he would risk federal money counterfeiting charges to get out of paying US$3000? Or does it sound like he wanted to "get back" at the government...?
Mind you, all he actually achieved is inconvenience some government employees who had absolutely nothing to do with whatever imagined ill-treatment he was protesting or whatever.
"Mind you, all he actually achieved is inconvenience some government employees who had absolutely nothing to do with whatever imagined ill-treatment he was protesting or whatever."
No, he got publicity as well.
Besides, those innocents still work for the Kafkan bureaucracy, don't they?
Brilliant move!
What I think he tried to achieve and eminently succeeded in doing was to draw attention to how hard it was to get in touch with and get the information needed to pay his taxes. By paying with five wheelbarrows worth of coins he definitely got the media exposure he would not otherwise have had.
"All banks have big machines that can count coins (and reject counterfeits) at high speed."
not many tax offices do.
And investigations have shown that UK banks routinely hand out counterfeit £1 coins, so either that filter isn't working or they choose to get rid of them rather than declare them to treasury.
Pennies? England has Pennies (and Pounds). We have dollars and cents.
Ob. Pedantry: The legal name of our one cent coins is "cent" and the plural is "cents". Yes, a lot of people here call our cents "pennies." You'd think in 240 years we could break that habit. (If we can't manage to break _that_ habit in 240 years, I don't have much hope about ever switching to metric despite adopting it in law in 1866.)
The switch to copper plated zinc occurred in the middle of 1982; early 1982 cents weigh 3.11 grams, late 1982 cents weigh 2.5 grams. I forget when England switched to copper plated steel pennies (and can't be bothered to look it up.) I always thought that was brilliant because you can extract the pennies from a pile of coins with a magnet.
For some reason the banks in New York do not weigh coins to count them. They feed them through a rotary sorter when they have to. I always assumed the coins were so badly made the weight couldn't be guaranteed.
According to the original BBC report (which I read yesterday) they had a counting machine but it was "overwhelmed" (and the implication was it was broken in the process).
Interestingly, the subway booth attendants in NY could and would reject attempts to pay in large numbers of coins back in '84. Not sure how that worked, and private businesses always have the right to reject payment when the payee is buggering about like this and demand payment in a more reasonable form (or so I was told by a NY Citibank manager once).
As for the matter of blanks, the pennies themselves cost more than 1c to make. That's why the US Government wants to get rid of them.
There are actually federal laws requiring that you take legal tender. This way there is a universal currency and you don't get screwed over by Snidely Whiplash when you hand him $3,000 in bills to pay off the mortgage on your family farm, and he refuses it and insists that he is foreclosing since you didn't give him a check/credit card/wire transfer/whatever for the amount.
That's why if you look at your $ bills, you will see an annotation saying that "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." Policies stating otherwise are simply businesses trying to get you to surrender a legal right that you have so that they don't have to keep and secure cash on premises.
Notes are always legal, but I am not sure if paying a private debt in X thousands of coins constitutes a legal nuisance. The government, however, is required to take the currency they supposedly stand behind.
Apparently, while currency and coin are "legal tender," and in fact currency is marked "Legal tender for all debts public and private," there are no Federal laws that require private or public agencies to actually accept cash. I found that out many years ago. I used to pay my rent in cash. One day I walked in to pay the rent and a woman at the desk said, "I'm sorry, we don't accept cash." I asked her if she had ever read the fine print on a dollar bill. I also pointed out that (at the time) each check cost me 50 cents. That was six dollars a year I wanted off my rent if they were going to insist on checks. After that I wrote checks 50 cents under the rent. There was some back and forth about the issue. The property management company explained that there were only the two women staffing the office and they would be vulnerable to bad guys who wanted the cash. My response was that's fine, I understood completely, but I was simply charging them for the cost of their insisting on checks.
In the UK, it is 20 pence in 1p and 2p coins. Beyond that, pennies are not legal tender. Pound coins are legal tender for any amount. In the USA, a company can refuse to do business with you if you come with handfuls of cents or with $100 notes, but I think they can't refuse the money for payment.
In the U.K. the 1971 coinage act specifies the value which can be paid in any given denomination -
Gold coins (£1, £2, £5 etc) any amount
20p and 50p pieces not exceeding £10
5p and 10p pieces not exceeding £5
1p and 2p pieces up to 20p
If you attempt to pay more than those denominations the payee can legally refuse to accept the payment. There are ways to make it awkward if you feel really passionately - like freezing the coins in a huge block of ice (use distilled water to get a transparent block of ice so the coins are visible). Provide a breakdown of the contents by each denomination and don't forget to demand a receipt
I heard years ago (IANAL) that were legal limits on how much cash one had to accept, depending on denomination. With pennies, near as I recall, the limit was $5. If true, the DMV could have rejected the payment
Don't know about the US, but I know that such a restriction is in place in the UK. Although I appreciate the prank value, the impact a coin-only payment of such a sum has makes it an entirely sensible restriction to have. I suspect this guy must have also done quite a bit of pre-ordering by several banks to obtain that many coins - banks too tend to have limited stock.
"It's illegal to destroy the coins to get the copper."
But once you have the copper, how do you prove it came from coins? alloy analysis is easily gamed by adding a copper block, etc.
It's one of those laws that's only possible to enforce by catching someone in the act.
He's a fool to himself, then. It's a Federal crime to deface U.S. currency; that includes melting them down to recover their metal content.
It's also a crime here to deface Her Maj's image. So, when we were kids and putting 2p pieces on the railway line to get them flattened we were, strictly speaking, criminals[1]..
[1] Well, twice over since we were trespassing on British Rail property..
All US currency ever issued is legal tender. A payment in legal tender may be rejected, but no penalty can be attached for failure to pay(the debt doesn't precisely go away, but you can't refuse payment and then fine the guy for not paying). If you're buying something any kind of payment can be rejected but for a debt already incurred it's different.
If this had been loose coins it would probably not have been legitimate, but since it appears he had them all in proper rolls it's a slightly different situation.
Honestly I would suggest they mostly wanted him to go away.
Oh dear. According to the US Treasury, which is responsible for US currency, all notes and coins are legal tender, but individual organisations can develop policies for payment in legal tender. From their website:
'The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."
'This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.'
State and local governments and agencies are "organisations" under the meaning of the statute. So, while the DMV may, if it wishes, accept pennies for the settlement of a debt, it is within its rights to make a rule that coins under a certain denomination are not accepted at its offices, unless its State has passed a law mandating that it must accept coins of all denominations.
I'll get my hat and coat,
All US currency ever issued is legal tender.
Sadly, not the case with UK currency - my wife found some old £10 notes and had to take them to a bank to get them exchanged for the current edition..
I think that only the current+1 previous generation of notes are valid - older than that they either have to be exchanged by a co-operative bank (they are not legally required to) or by the BOE in Threadneedle St. They *are* legally required to. But paying the £100-odd to get to London from the rural delights of the West country to change £40 of old £10 notes didn't seem worth it.
Fortunately, we still had a bank account with a proper bank (as opposed to a Building Society) and they exchanged them.
"Interestingly, the subway booth attendants in NY could and would reject attempts to pay in large numbers of coins back in '84. Not sure how that worked"
In most countries there's a legal limit to the value of small change that a merchant is obligated to accept (it's usually something like $5 or £5 or local equivalent.) Above that, accepting it is discretionary.
"Interestingly, the subway booth attendants in NY could and would reject attempts to pay in large numbers of coins back in '84. Not sure how that worked, and private businesses always have the right to reject payment when the payee is buggering about"
Here in the Uk the ticket machines on the tube will reject your payment if you try to use more than 20(?) coins. I believe that it is a function of the escrow hopper tray being inadequately small.
"Legal tender for all debts, public and private"
It's printed on the bills, but the government doesn't like people questioning the value of any of its currency. Add in that it's a government agency collecting (the DMV) and it seems unlikely that they could reasonably refuse...
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"I'm pretty sure they could have just weighed them to arrive at a count with an acceptable level of accuracy."
They should have been able to. I don't know about now, but Barclays used to weigh the notes that were paid in to them. If they can trust the accuracy of the weight of notes then coins shouldn't be a problem at all.
Not clear why Mr Angry could not do his business through the normal channels. Comes across as a self-entitled arrogant prick looking for someone to shout at a safe distance. Would they have given out their own home address so the authorities could send round "the management" to discuss his issues face to face? I doubt it.
"Perhaps but, if one has a question one would expect a way to get it answered without being (effectively) told to piss off."
"Stafford's dispute continued and he demanded to know the direct numbers of nine other tax offices, even though the DMV had by this point answered his original query. This was refused, and so Stafford went to court to have his case heard. He did not win the case, although he did manage to get the taxman's numbers"
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I'd say the original exchange was more like:
"Thank you for calling the Cedar Bluff Department of Motor Vehicles, our hours are Monday to Friday 10:30 AM to 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM. Did you know that you can change your address or apply for an appointment online? Visit our website at www.dmv.va.gov/cedarbluff/dmv/webportal/home/home/webportal. Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed effective December 12th, 2013. For motorcycle registration, press 1; for motorcycle licensing, press 2; for motorcycle tax inquiries, press 3; for motorcycle titling, press 4; for motorcycle title transfer, press 5; for all other inquiries, please stay on the line.
We are currently experiencing higher than anticipated call volume. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order it was received. You are currently caller number 8, your estimated wait time is 45 minutes."
52 minutes pass...
"Thank you for calling the Cedar Bluff Department of Motor Vehicles, how can I help you?"
"Yes, I'd like to register some vehicles I just purchased."
"That's not our department, you'll have to call the Bureau of Revenue Collection."
"And then they "break open the paper rolls of the coins". That would be the rolls they come in from the bank."
I've just read his website and it seems he delivered 5whbs of "UNROLLED" coins, so the "Shear bloody mindedness mascerading as Incompetance.(several sics)" would appear to be on the part of the protagonist (well, the bloody-mindedness part anyway).
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Pennies and tuppences are only legal tender for amounts up to 20p, precisely to stop shit like this.
Because I know you are all fascinated by this, 5p/10p are legal tender for amounts up to £5, 50p/20p are legal tender for amounts up to £10, and £1/£2/£5 are legal tender for any amount.
I did once write my university 100 cheques each for 50p once, to pay a £50 cleaning "fine" which had unilaterally been applied to each person on my floor because they couldn't work out who trashed the kitchen. It would have cost them >50p to cash each one, so they didn't...
Although cheques written on large plywood sheets can be perfectly legal and accepted. As I understand it, there is no obligation to actually accept them. Kind of a reverse of the coins where large quantities are not strictly legal tender but could be accepted.
As I understand it, there is no obligation to actually accept them.
I think that banks are legally required to accept written instructions from their customers, the whole reason cheques were invented was to avoid the hassle of having illegible requests written on the back of a napkin, piece of bog roll, or whatever else came to hand. Even so, if you write it down & sign it I think (but IANAL) the bank has to process it.
Makes me wonder what will happen if their plans to put an end to cheques ever happen, since they
ll still be bound by the legal requirement to accept written instructions.
The first act was the Bills of Exchange Act 1882. Cheques have never been legal tender and banks are not obliged to process written instructions unless it is by a means agreed in advance, that the customer has funds and that the bank is satisfied that there is no fraudulence involved. There were further measures introduced in 1985 to prevent fraud which established some of the features of cheques which would be required for them to be considered "valid instruction" for UK banks. These features have been expanded upon ever since, and there is even a non-standard paper cheque unit at the central clearing house for dealing with foreign cheques and weird-arse shit. It was around 1999 that a legal statute was passed whereby the pieces of paper didn't have to be actually hoiked all over the country in order to have their value transferred. I'm not sure how the pieces of paper felt about this.
"Makes me wonder what will happen if their plans to put an end to cheques ever happen, since they will still be bound by the legal requirement to accept written instructions." - Banks aren't stopping ACCEPTING cheques, they are stopping ISSUING them. Specifically many banks don't issue a check-book unless you explicitly ask for it and even then they wont give you a cheque guaranty card, so no-one will take them. Cheques are problematic for banks, since they could be cashed at any time in future. It's an unexpected debt.
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"Cheques are problematic for banks, since they could be cashed at any time in future. It's an unexpected debt."
Cheques are a debt for the issuer, not the banks - the bank just won't pay out on a cheque if you don't have the funds available, plus they will charge you generously in the process - it doesn't affect the banks either way.
The other point is that there's no difference in randomness of money flow between a cheque or a bank card - either is likely to be used at random times to suit the convenience of the depositor - or at least that's how I use mine.
not any time in the future - banks only accept cheques dated no earlier than 6 months.
It's not an unexpected debt - the account holder knows the money will become due and the bank will not clear the cheque if there are insufficient funds (or an overdraft).
I have paid in a cheque to a UK bank on a wooden board, specifically the end from a box of onions (I think it was onions). My late lamented mate Steve was having some kind of disagreement with his bank, and they refused to issue him a new chequebook, even though he had funds in his account (I forget the details - it was a long time ago). So, anyway, we made as good a replica of a standard cheque as we could, except it was quadruple size and on this crate end.
When I went to pay it in the lass behind the counter said "I can't take that" until I pointed out the card number was written on the back. So she called over a superior, who briefly glanced at the ceiling, and said fine, accept it.
Subsequent developments were that they issued a new chequebook, and Steve got a lecture from an acquaintance at the bank who told him what a damned nuisance he was because the wooden cheque didn't fit into any of the various trays and boxes they had for handling cheques.
RIP Steve Dyer
Although cheques written on large plywood sheets can be perfectly legal
And cows. I seem to remember there was a case involving a farmer to, in the days when it cost more to slaughter a cow than the cow was worth, wrote a cheque on the side of a cow.
At which point, the cow became SEP.
You can however pay a debt with a novelty 10' plywood cheque.
Or, in fiction at least, a negotiable cow.
Every time I try to recount this tale, it ends up reading like a made up story because of all the details it requires for context, but short version is, I had to get out a loan to pay off my alcoholic mothers rent debts when I was 18 (having been trying to 'manage' them - I lived in the house so she might not have given a toss about eviction, but I bloody did - since I was 13).
Suffice to say I had a bank manager who was sympathetic, a rent officer who was sympathetic, and the rent officers boss, who was, decidedly, not.
The bank manager agreed to the loan based on the fact that I'd been managing her bank accounts too, to an extent (just not legally - this was a local bank, for local people!) so he knew I wasn't taking the piss, and he let me know that he had a whole stock of shitty, dirty, barely legal - but legal - £5 notes that he'd been avoiding using for cashiers as they were such a fiddle to handle. It'd be a real personal favour to him if I could help him use them up.
So, yes, I crippled myself for a couple of years with a £2000 loan for a debt that wasn't mine, but it was worth it. The rent officers manager had used my case as an exemplar of his 'tough love' approach (IE pay the whole fucking lot now, or get evicted, regardless of context or history) and so came down to meet me and accept payment personally.
The shit eating grin dropped rapidly when I emptied a carrier bag of 400 loose, dirty £5 notes over the counter.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that's it. You said you wanted to count it. Off you pop. And don't forget, the girls here tell me policy is to count it twice, so do set a good example!".
Glorious. But not as glorious as my rent officer (truly a good lad who had bent many, many a rule for me) 'accidentally' dropping a pile of folders on the counter (relating to 'our' case) and blowing pretty much every counted note off the table. Just as his boss was finishing counting for the second time.
Oh, and the mother? She died three months later.
She always did have a shitty sense of timing...
The conclusion is, this is how I learned about limits on legal tender - because otherwise a wheelbarrow or five of pennies (or possibly 50ps, because shiny) would have been right up my street.
Anon, because this is - I'm told - still local legend in that (very 'local town, for local people') council housing department even the better part of twenty years later.
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I did once write my university 100 cheques each for 50p once, to pay a £50 cleaning "fine" which had unilaterally been applied to each person on my floor because they couldn't work out who trashed the kitchen.
They probably thought having you write out the university's name, the 50p amount, signing your name then writing "NOT NEGOTIABLE" on the cheque, 100 times, was punishment enough.
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I have to agree. My first thought was that the guy is a bit of an ass.
However, as anyone that has been on the receiving end of any kind of bureaucracy knows, it's easy to get very worked up when dealing government dickheads. Rational thought goes out the door when trying to deal with some of these people.
Anyone who works for pretty well any Government Department has a lobotomy where all traces of Common Sense are surgically removed.
This is Mandatory for any US Federal/State/County/City department. They only know how to follow the rules to the letter. They will not divert from these rules no matter how silly they are.
Most offices provide a soft pad screwed to the wall for clients to bang their head.
"Well yes, mainly because if you work for a government department and apply common sense rather than the letter of the rules sooner or later some idiot and his a******e lawyer will start a lawsuit and your neck will be on the block."
What happens when the lawyer simply sues on the grounds of interference BY playing by the book (IOW, using the letter to defeat the spirit)? Sounds like they can get you either way.
Sorry Phil, a common mistake, like people confusing light-years with speed rather than distance.
Whbs aren't a measure of wealth but rather a measure of frustration or angst.
Usages:
* He was so rude to me, I hope the next guy pays with 2 Whbs!
* These #£&+ mosquitos are everywhere. Every time I get one another starts buzzing. It's like 7 Whbs.
* Is it so hard to put your phone on silent at the theatre. May the parking ticket machine return her 400 mWhbs in change.
Being from the US, I feel it my duty to enforce my own, non-scientific standard of measurement.
I present, the "hoard": https://www.littletoncoin.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Display|10001|29555|-1||LearnNav|Famous-Hoards.html
Examples:
1 Carson ("CChrd"): 8,261 Carson City Silver Dollars = US$8,261
1 Bonehoard ("BNhrd"): 300,000 Buffalo Nickels = US$15,000
etc...
"He did not win the case, although he did manage to get the taxman's numbers."
From the Bristol Herald Courier (Bristol, Tennessee and Virginia. Think NASCAR)
"On Tuesday, a judge dismissed the lawsuits at the request of the state when a representative of the state’s attorney general handed Stafford a list of the requested phone numbers in the courtroom. The court also did not impose penalties on the DMV and its employees, which could have been between $500 and $2,000 per lawsuit if the employees had “willfully and knowingly” violated public records law."
The guy lives about 60 miles north of me. I caught the tail end of a radio interview with him this morning.
The DMV wasn't fined since the judge dismissed the case after he received the requested phone numbers. His tax liability stayed the same, and I hope that the DMV is a little more responsive when a phone number is requested. Otherwise, somebody will pay their taxes in mixed coins.
"Think NASCAR"
No thanks! NASCAR is merely ice hockey on wheels; the fighting is more interesting than the actual event. If racing is entertainment, NASCAR is like the circus clowns act.
Now BTCC, THAT's real racing! It's like a destruction derby with nicer cars. No opening for you to make a pass at the corner? No problem, just barge though and make one! These drivers can do more than just "hit the gas, and turn to the left sometimes!"
Glad this asshole bothered to pay his taxes and not just refuse. He drove down to the DMV office on a public road, hopefully not destroying it in anger on the way. Other people get to use the roads too, and they are not all angry assholes who can't manage to follow instructions. If you see him, tell him "fuck off" from me!
"No thanks! NASCAR is merely ice hockey on wheels; the fighting is more interesting than the actual event. If racing is entertainment, NASCAR is like the circus clowns act."
Then please enlighten me how NASCAR drivers negotiate Sonoma or Watkins Glen International (both road courses) with nothing but left turns. Anyway, NASCAR is looking into more road course races but has plans set for several years ahead of time due to existing commitments. There's also an issue that road courses are not as engaging for the live audience (not as big an issue for TV audiences), and like any business NASCAR has to keep paying attention to the audience: thus its focus on keeping things competitive.
The article mentions that it took 11 driods from the DMV 4 hours to count the coins. With a little math, that works out to $68/droid/hour (I'm rounding here). Being as this was "overtime", and with generous government labor contracts, and given overhead, (lights, taxes, etc.), one can easily assume that the government lost money on this transaction.
So, opening up all the rolls of pennies (50/roll) was more than a waste of time, it was a waste of valuable taxpayer money as well. Common sense would have dictated that the DMV should have taken all these rolls down to the local bank (they most likely originated there anyway), and said "DEPOSIT PLEASE" and let the bank handle the problem.
Sadly common sense in a government agency doesn't exist, so they did it the "hard" way. (*SIGH*).
So, this may not at all be correct but, I was under the impression that "paying for stuff in a shop" is different from "settling a debt".
When you stand at the till and they say "that'll be £11.63 please" then there are limits on what they are required to accept (which, as noted in comments above, are actually surprisingly small so often bigger shops will be more lenient) so you can't give them 1163 pennies and then shout "you're discriminating against me" or whatever if they refuse. This isn't "settling a debt" because you don't owe anything because they haven't given you the goods yet.
But in a restaurant, for example, you are "settling a debt" because at the end of the meal they have given you the goods and so you do now owe them recompense for that. I and thought, perhaps wrongly, that there was a different set of rules about what they were required to accept in payment of that debt. i.e. that they can't refuse to accept because you want to pay a £5.10 bill with 51x10p, for example, because it is actual money of the correct amount and you are legitimately attempting to settle the debt.
Of course all of this is covered by the general observation that life would be so much easier if everyone on both sides of these transactions just resolved to "not be a dick about things".
Which reminds me of the time I donated several years (and Kgs) collection of coppers to the work charity collection and said "You do have one of those coin counting machines don't you?" to which the response was "Yes. But's it's broken. But that's OK because we've got an intern!".
Those are not U.S. pennies. I haven't seen a British penny, but it looks more like Canadian coin to me?
Back on topic. I sympathize with the guy. And if I had deep enough pockets I'd probably do something similar. Good for him. We've all been there.
As for paying. I'm not sure about coins, but I know that paper money in the U.S. is legal for ALL debts, public and private. Says so on the print. This isn't the first time I've read stories like this in The States, so I would imagine that it holds for coin as well.
Some of us even knew they were Euro cents without having to resort to the image text.
And certainly I've have expected the El Reg staff to recognize Euro cents in any event, despite the fact that the UK isn't on the Euro. (And now won't ever be, and probably never was going to be anyway.)
(I didn't know that Canada finally ditched their cent. I've been wishing for 20+ years that the US would. I wish we'd ditch the $1 note too. We've got $1 coins, but nobody will use them as long as we've got notes in circulation.)
To dispute a ticket that was clearly wrong on two counts, with only 300 pennies back in the 80's and was told that it was not acceptable, and being in the same building as the police officer holding pen, I wised up real fast, left quietly, and paid at another time with acceptable currency.
Lesson or two here, pick your battles wisely, and don't attract attention to yourself. I'm guessing that this guy (and family) will see red, white and blue lights in his mirror much more often than before. Maybe the lucky officers will use some of those dodgy drug testing kits to run him through the system? Especially his teenaged son whom he bought a Corvette for... that's how this whole episode started
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/09/texas_man_loses_job_and_jailed_after_cops_confuse_cat_litter_for_meth/
US bills are marked with the "all debts" wording as noted up-thread, but...
Buying something from a shop is not a debt. You don't "owe money" to the shop - the goods are purchased by agreement at the point of checkout. If there's a posted policy about not accepting £50 notes or $100 ones and it's applied in a non-discriminatory manner, you're accepting that as part of the transaction.
But if the tax-man says you owe them $3000, that *is* a debt - and if there's no law saying "can't pay debts with stupid amounts of coinage / small bills", and the currency specifically says "all debts", then you're entirely free to wreak hilarious petty satisfaction as this gentleman did.
Many moons ago I fulfilled a schoolboy ambition by collecting someone's car in New York and driving it to San Francisco to deliver it. One dark night I parked it at a meter in Chicago on a main road. I took great care to check the meter, which said that charges only applied from 9am to 7pm. When I ventured out at 8.50am I was astounded to see a $20 ticket stuck to the windscreen. Turned out that hidden in the undergrowth was a filthy old sign that said there was no parking between 7am and 9am. It was invisible at night, not that anyone would would be looking there; the notice on the meter should have spelt this prohibited times in big letters.
I was delivering a mother's car to her daughter who was studying at Berkeley, so my initial idea of just tearing up the unfair ticket might have caused problems for her. The Chicago jobsworths were most unhelpful, repeating that 'a parking ticket is a parking ticket' so I thought I'd show theoretical willingness to pay by posting them a NatWest cheque made out in the sum of "$20 or £8". (Yes, it was a long time ago.)
Imagine my surprise and disappointment when my next bank statement arrived showing a debit of £8 along with the paid cheque bearing several colourful rubber stamps (they used to return cheques in those days) !
Trying to contact government departments can be a nightmare.
Having a foreign wife, I have had numerous interactions with UK Immigration , but even after 5 years, I still didnt have a phone number for them, and there isnt one published anywhere I could find.
When I tried to contact them over a fraudulent application made in my wifes name, I spent hours trying to get someone to put me through to a relevant person - completely in vain.
The damned letter they sent, confirming receipt of the application didnt even have a return address on it!!
Years ago now my Czech wife (before they joined the EU) had obtained a permanent residence visa upon our marriage which was stuck into her passport. When we had children the Czech authorities simply wrote their names into her passport, as was common at the time, so they could travel with us.
At some later point, we needed to go back to Immigration at Croydon, for a reason that escapes me now, and the woman got very agitated at seeing the children's names in the passport.
"You can't add their names because the visa doesn't apply to them." (completely ignoring the fact that they were UK citizens anyway), she said.
"So what do you want us to do?"
"Get separate passports for the children."
"The Czech Government doesn't issue passports for children under 16"
"Well you can't have them named here."
"Can't you just mark on the visa stamp that it only applies to the mother?"
"No we're not able to do that."
And so it went on like this for 20 minutes. Every suggestion we made she said she couldn't do and every suggestion she made would require us to get the Czech government to change its official policy.
Eventually she just walked off and left us at the counter. Didn't even fetch a manager, just walked off. Utterly disgraceful.
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There's no law preventing it; then again, there's no law forcing it, either. And since this is a live transaction, not a payment of debt, it's between the buyer and seller to determine what's acceptable and what's not.
Legal Tender laws ONLY apply to DEBTS. And while there are no limitations in the US (most likely due to First Amendment grounds--just like burning the flag, a protest payment can be construed as speech, so any law that attempts to do this could be challenged), the UK does impose limits on what denominations you can use to pay a debt.
The background for non-US (and perhaps non-Virginians), is that in Virginia they *tax* the car you ALREADY own. They called it a "personal property tax", and you pay it if your parked in the state for more than 10 days (or some other arbitrary limit), EVEN ON PRIVATE LAND.
My buddy was happy to keep my car covered, but the State of Virginia encourages neighbours to spy on covered cars....and then fine you (@#$%#@$!)
Paying tax when you buy something, OK got it.
Paying tax when you use a resource, OK got it, though it is always abused.
Paying for parking a car in a *PRIVATE* garage?
WTF?
P.
Getting slightly off original topic, but steering to an IT angle...
In Connecticut there's a similar law for cars (owned or leased - doesn't matter) - amount is payable to the city they're registered in. Don't pay, your registration gets suspended & driving it becomes a criminal matter.
They take it further for businesses: - ANNUAL property Tax is due on all the IT Assets / Office Equipment owned (or leased from a 3rd party).
1) Buy with cash / finance purchase with interest or lease expensive Gear & pay sales tax on it at time of purchase.
2) Depreciate value of said gear over 5 or 7 years (Typically).
3) Each year a % of the residual (undepreciated) amount is owed to state coffers.
If you're leasing the gear, YOU are responsible for the Property Tax (even though you don't own it)
Makes VAT (almost) seem reasonable.
TL;DR If possible, avoid building DataCenters or Trading Floors here unless you can negotiate tax breaks from the State Government prior to moving in and then threaten to take your toys (and jobs) to NY/NJ unless those breaks are renewed after expiry.
Unless you're Royal Bank of Scotland building a GLOBAL HQ in Stamford CT (UK Gov bailout stopped moving HQ, but the building went up) or UBS building what was once the worlds largest trading floor (now mostly empty) the only option is to accept ever increasing tax rates to fund the big guys sweetheart deals or GTFO and setup shop elsewhere.
"They called it a "personal property tax", and you pay it if your parked in the state for more than 10 days (or some other arbitrary limit), EVEN ON PRIVATE LAND."
That's because PRIVATE LAND is still COMMONWEALTH land (Virginia is legally defined a Commonwealth). Their territory, their rules. It's sort of like why you have to pay Virginia sales tax when in Virginia even when you don't live there (that's why tourtist-heavy states like Florida and Nevada rely on these instead of income taxes).
I thought my lot was bad,
I had AU$3500 worth of loose change over 20+ years, Weighed 55kg.
Too lazy to try and spend it so it just piled up.
Was 5 trips all up to get it down there, Put it through coin counter machine, Spat out a dozen New Zealand 20c pieces, Way too similar and shops/petrol stations don't check!
Word of advice, Make sure there is no sticky tape AT ALL left on any coins, You will jam the machine up and annoy the staff.
Also don't be behind a mum with kids piggy bank, Guaranteed there will be a button in there that jams the machine. ;)
There are NO real democracies in the world, since Aristotle noted they equate to mob rule. Furthermore, the average person is relatively uneducated, emotional, and easily persuaded. Meaning mob rule can be turned against itself by a charismatic but self-centered despot. Ring any bells?
At the end of one semester, I diligently paid for my dorm, tuition, and other bills of the upcoming semester. I returned after a holiday break to find access to classes suspended and my dorm room in threat of being handed over to another student.
The problem was that a minion in the Bursar's office had signed off on a paper receipt for me saying all was paid off, but typo'd in the computer system to the effect that I was $10 short. The Bursar's office was staffed with under-motivated students and had little institutional memory because of high turnover, so the only solution they could figure out was to trust the computer and not the receipt. The university was thus convinced I was in arrears and not fit to attend classes or occupy my dorm room.
So I went across the street to my bank, got $10 in pennies, and re-paid the college. Except for a threat to make me count the rolled pennies individually, the coins were accepted, database annotated to show I was paid in full, and a Bursar-signed receipt issued. I've become a packrat of receipts and official signatures since then; they've twice saved me from making duplicate monthly payments on my rent when the apartment managers scramble their recordkeeping.