I'm buying my car out since the lease is expiring. I was able to secure a loan from my father who urged me to borrow the money from him instead of securing an auto loan from a bank. I am in the midst of house shopping and have been also speaking to some mortgage lenders/advisors. One piece of common advice I've heard is to not have any unsubstantiated/suspicious deposits outside your normal payroll. Mortgage lenders are looking more closely at finances and many are demanding bank statements in order to get an idea of your financial history; meaning they will inquire about anything falling outside the norm. So knowing all this, I decided to go with my dad's idea.
He mailed me a check for $13,000 and my idea was to cash the check and not deposit it in my checking account, this way an unexplained 13k won't make it on to my bank statement. My own credit union has a policy that they can't simply cash a check of this size without me depositing it. Ok, scratch that idea. The check was drawn from TD bank, my father's bank. I go to TD and they say no problem, we can cash the check. The teller informs me she has to file a suspicious transaction report. This is what I was not prepared for.
I inform the teller that I do not wish to proceed with the transaction and ask her to return my check to me. No problem and I walk out of the bank. In order to buy out my vehicle, I ended up dipping into funds earmarked for my house deposit, created a cashier's check at my credit union and used that to buy out the lease. I'm now 13k short and will plan on using my dad's loan to replenish that account and pay him back. I will see him this month and he said he can give me cash instead of a check. With this information, I went ahead and voided, then shredded the check.
My question is about these STRs. I've researched them and understand their purpose and how they are filed. I'm wondering what are the implications/consequences of having one filed. On a criminal level, I have nothing to worry about since this is a one time event and shouldn't warrant any investigation and I'm not money laundering or anything like that. I was more concerned about the IRS knowing about this money and them thinking it was income of some sort. I want to reduce any chance of being audited. I also did not want anything to interfere with me getting the best mortgage rate possible.
After all was said and done, reflecting on today's events, I felt like I was making decisions on the spot and shooting from the hip. It was the first time I ever had to deal with STR, while buying out a car and trying to maintain a positive financial history to secure a mortgage in the near future. If anyone can comment on these STRs or offer advice on what they would have done given my circumstances, please do so. Thanks...
He mailed me a check for $13,000 and my idea was to cash the check and not deposit it in my checking account, this way an unexplained 13k won't make it on to my bank statement. My own credit union has a policy that they can't simply cash a check of this size without me depositing it. Ok, scratch that idea. The check was drawn from TD bank, my father's bank. I go to TD and they say no problem, we can cash the check. The teller informs me she has to file a suspicious transaction report. This is what I was not prepared for.
I inform the teller that I do not wish to proceed with the transaction and ask her to return my check to me. No problem and I walk out of the bank. In order to buy out my vehicle, I ended up dipping into funds earmarked for my house deposit, created a cashier's check at my credit union and used that to buy out the lease. I'm now 13k short and will plan on using my dad's loan to replenish that account and pay him back. I will see him this month and he said he can give me cash instead of a check. With this information, I went ahead and voided, then shredded the check.
My question is about these STRs. I've researched them and understand their purpose and how they are filed. I'm wondering what are the implications/consequences of having one filed. On a criminal level, I have nothing to worry about since this is a one time event and shouldn't warrant any investigation and I'm not money laundering or anything like that. I was more concerned about the IRS knowing about this money and them thinking it was income of some sort. I want to reduce any chance of being audited. I also did not want anything to interfere with me getting the best mortgage rate possible.
After all was said and done, reflecting on today's events, I felt like I was making decisions on the spot and shooting from the hip. It was the first time I ever had to deal with STR, while buying out a car and trying to maintain a positive financial history to secure a mortgage in the near future. If anyone can comment on these STRs or offer advice on what they would have done given my circumstances, please do so. Thanks...
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