Shopping with cash is now illegal


With the passage of House Bill 195 into law, the State of Louisiana has banned the use of cash in all transactions involving second-hand goods. State representative Ricky Hardy, a co-author of the bill, claims that the bill targets criminals who traffic in stolen goods. According to Hardy, “It’s a mechanism to be used so the police department has something to go on and have a lead.”

The bill prohibits cash transactions by “second-hand dealers,” defined to include garage sales, flea markets, resellers of specialty items, and even non-profit resellers like Goodwill. Curiously, it specifically exempts pawnbrokers from the ban. But of course, pawn shops – and not rented stalls at local church flea markets – are notorious as places that criminals frequent to convert stolen goods into quick cash. So what gives?

Are the authors of the bill and those who voted for it ignoramuses – or are they deliberately obscuring the real purpose of the bill? The answer is clear once we examine the other provisions of the bill. The bill goes far beyond banning cash transactions. As lawyer Thad Ackel notes, the bill requires:

… second-hand dealers to turn over a valuable business asset, namely, their business’ proprietary client information. For every transaction, a second-hand dealer must obtain the seller’s personal information such as their name, address, driver’s license number, and the license plate number of the vehicle in which the goods were delivered.

They must also make a detailed description of the item(s) purchased and submit this with the personal identification information of every transaction to the local policing authorities through electronic daily reports.

If a seller cannot or refuses to produce to the second-hand dealer any of the required forms of identification, the second-hand dealer is prohibited from completing the transaction.


So the aim of the bill is not to aid law enforcement in apprehending criminals, none of whom would be ever stupid enough to turn over such information. The real intent is to feed government’s insatiable hunger for tax revenues by completely stripping law-abiding citizens of financial privacy in second-hand transactions, every detail of which is fed directly into police files. This troubling development in Louisiana parallels the intensification of the war on cash by the Federal government. Last month, it was reported that the U.S. Justice Department ordered bank employees to snitch to the cops on customers who withdrew $5,000 or more. In a speech, assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell exhorted banks to “alert law enforcement authorities about the problem” so that police can “seize the funds” or at least “initiate an investigation.”

Its not about criminals. It's about forcing sellers to collect sales taxes and report income so they can pay income taxes. The police are not one bit concerned about stopping the sale of stolen items of small value at flea markets. It's about tax revenues! Wake up Louisiana.

When it comes down to taking my cash or letting my business go down the road....they will take my cash.


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Cash is king.

So this is no longer true?

This is a joke, right? So today I bought an 18' car hauler from a guy. Trailers aren't titled in Tennessee so I paid him in $100 bills and he wrote me a bill of sale and I drove off. You're telling me that would be illegal in Louisiana?

Typical government over reach

This story is complete bullshit, Ricky Hardy was voted out of office in 2012. Look up House Bill 195, it refers to the coroners office, and has nothing to do with cash transactions.


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