Is It Illegal to Burn Money In the United States? Some Quick Research On This Subject

I recently watched the first Batman movie in the Christopher Nolan Series, the one where Joker burns all the money in that like gigantic $1,000,000,000.00 pile of cash (all that cash flow is gone! #Grant Cardone) and it got me to thinking, is it illegal to burn money in the United States or in other countries?

Turns out in the United States, yes, it is actually illegal to burn money, and there is very good reason for this. In other countries that are much more liberal on this matter, I believe around Europe, they are more laid back on this, and you can actually burn your $100,000 in cash in your backyard if you so desire.

The United States however, with how powerful money is in the country, is much different. The US absolutely needs to keep track of its currency, because if you are rich in the United States, you quite literally have all the power. Aside from this I would say it’s one of those laws where they can add extra counts to your sentence if they need to. For instance, there is an IRS law that you can find here that basically says if you make money by illicit means that you still need to report it on your income taxes. And I know what you’re thinking, who is going to report income from their illegal side hustle? Well likely no one, but what it basically is is another way for them to catch you for your activities or add more counts to their case. There was even a case in IRS court where someone who has already been popped was working through filing his tax returns and was deducting write offs used for his activities that were ALLOWED as ordinary and necessary business expenses, very interesting case to Google.

Why Is it Illegal to Burn Money in The United States?

In the United States, it is illegal to burn money because it harms the Government’s ability to keep track of the amount of currency in flux in the system (this is known as M1 currency.) This does damage to the US Government’s ability to assess adequate taxes, to look at interest rates and inflation, and the whole 9 yards. Obviously one Joe Blow burning $20 in his backyard doesn’t do anything, but this needs to be illegal as if everyone did it, we would have a serious problem on our hands. This is alongside the reasoning above, where this is a regulation that gives the courts and Government more leverage over those involved as well.

More Specifically, Why Is It Illegal to Burn Money In the United States? And What Is M1, M2 and M3 Currencies

I would say that the primary reason that this is a law is because the United States wants to keep a tight leash on the amount of currency in its M1, M2 and M3 cash reserves. This would be physical money that you can hold, checking, savings and money market accounts, and related money market mutual funds and other currencies like Gold, Bitcoin and the like. This is the primary reason the law was enacted. More details include that this law doesn’t just stretch to burning money, it also includes mutilation that renders the bill no longer useable in circulation. I would imagine that there are a lot of counterfeiting statues here as well, not to mention the point that you can melt down a penny or a nickel for more than the change is worth>>hence creating a limitless money machine>>so yeah that’s another reason for this law. This also had much more of an application 50 or 100 years ago than it does in modern day, where the vast majority of currency in the US is in the form of bank accounts digitally.

Final Thoughts On Is It Illegal to Burn Money In The United States? The Facts and My Opinion On This

And there you have it, that’s all the reasons to answer why is it illegal to burn money in the United States! For more details on all things business, finance and money, be sure to read on or subscribe to our blog for additional details and information.

Cheers!

*Inflation Hedging.com

Sources:

https://www.bankrate.com/banking/cds/cd-rates/

https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

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