IRS Form 4789: FinCEN Form 112, Structuring, and Form 8300

IRS Form 4789 is the original name for the Currency Transaction Report, the form a bank or other financial institution files with the federal government whenever it handles a cash transaction of more than $10,000. The number is outdated. The report was redesignated as FinCEN Form 104 in 2003 and then replaced by FinCEN Form 112, which is the version institutions file today.¹² The legal requirement behind all three form numbers is the same. Only the label changed. And the customer never files it — the institution does.

From Form 4789 to FinCEN Form 112

When the Bank Secrecy Act took effect in 1970, the IRS administered currency transaction reporting and the paperwork was Form 4789. In 2003, FinCEN took over administration and reissued the form as FinCEN Form 104.¹ FinCEN later consolidated its filings, and the CTR became FinCEN Form 112.² Any reference to Form 4789 in an older document, training manual, or policy points to the same report now filed as Form 112. If you have been told to look up or complete a “Form 4789,” what you actually want is the current CTR.

What the CTR Reports

A financial institution has to file a CTR for any transaction in currency of more than $10,000, whether the cash is deposited, withdrawn, exchanged for another currency, or used to buy a cashier’s check or money order.¹ The $10,000 line has not been adjusted since Congress enacted the Bank Secrecy Act in 1970.

Currency for this purpose means physical coin and paper money that functions as legal tender, including foreign bills and coins that circulate in their home country.³ Personal checks, wire transfers, cashier’s checks, and money orders are not currency under the rule, even when cashed alongside a large cash withdrawal. Depositing $12,000 in hundred-dollar bills triggers a CTR. Depositing a $12,000 personal check does not.

The purpose of the report is to give the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network a paper trail on large cash movements so it can screen for money laundering, tax evasion, and terrorist financing.

Who Files and What Counts as One Transaction

The filing obligation sits entirely on the institution. Federally insured banks, state-chartered banks, credit unions, savings associations, and certain money service businesses such as check cashers and currency dealers all have to file when a reportable transaction runs through them.¹ Casinos and card clubs report cash-in and cash-out over $10,000 under a parallel rule that covers buying chips, feeding bills into slot machines, redeeming chips, and receiving payouts, among other transactions.⁴

The threshold is not measured one transaction at a time. Institutions must combine all cash transactions made by or on behalf of the same person during a single business day, and file a CTR if the total is more than $10,000.⁵ The rule reaches across a bank’s domestic branches: a $6,000 deposit at one branch and a $5,000 deposit at another branch of the same bank on the same day totals $11,000 and triggers the report.⁶ Automated monitoring flags same-day activity by account, and the obligation also extends to situations where a teller has reason to know that separate transactions are connected.

Structuring: Why Splitting the Deposit Is a Crime

Because customers sometimes hear about the $10,000 line and try to stay under it, this is worth being direct about. Deliberately breaking a large cash transaction into smaller pieces to keep the bank from filing a CTR is a federal crime called structuring. You do not have to be laundering money or evading taxes. The act of splitting the transaction to dodge the report is itself illegal.⁷

A small business owner who deposits $9,500 on Monday and $9,500 on Tuesday because a friend said “banks report anything over ten grand” has committed a federal offense, even if the money was clean. A first-time structuring conviction carries up to five years in prison, a fine, or both. If the structuring is part of a pattern involving more than $100,000 over twelve months, or happens alongside another federal crime, the maximum jumps to ten years and double the standard fine.⁸

Criminal charges are not the only exposure. Federal investigators can seize cash connected to structuring through civil forfeiture, a process that targets the money itself and can proceed even without criminal charges.⁹ There have been well-publicized cases of legitimate business owners losing bank accounts after making repeated deposits just below $10,000.

What the Bank Will Ask For

When a CTR is triggered, the bank collects and verifies information about you before submitting the report. Expect to be asked for your full legal name, date of birth, address, and Social Security number or taxpayer identification number, and to show a government-issued ID such as a driver’s license or passport that the bank records on the form.¹⁰ If you are conducting the transaction on behalf of another person or an organization, the same information is collected for that principal.¹¹ The report also captures the cash amount, the type of transaction, any account numbers involved, and the bank’s own identifying details.

If a customer has no Social Security number — a foreign national, for instance — the institution files with whatever identification is available and leaves the SSN field blank. Regulations require a reasonable and good-faith effort to collect the data, but the bank does not have to refuse the transaction because a piece of information is missing.¹²

If You Run a Business, Watch for Form 8300

The CTR covers financial institutions. Non-financial businesses have a parallel obligation under a different form, and this is where people who searched for “Form 4789” sometimes actually land. Any trade or business that receives more than $10,000 in cash from a single buyer, or the buyer’s agent, must file IRS/FinCEN Form 8300 within 15 days.¹³ Car dealers, jewelers, attorneys, and real estate agents are typical filers.

The aggregation window is the important difference. A CTR aggregates cash transactions within a single business day. Form 8300 uses a much wider lens: if installment payments from the same buyer exceed $10,000 within one year of the initial payment, the business has to file.¹³ A travel agent who takes $8,000 in cash one week and $3,000 from the same client two days later has crossed the threshold. Structuring rules apply to Form 8300 transactions as well, with the same criminal penalties as at a bank.

1
FFIEC BSA/AML InfoBase. NCUA Regulatory Alert 04-RA-06 – Currency Transaction Report Form
2
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. FinCEN CTR Form 112 Reporting of Certain Currency Transactions for Sole Proprietorships and Legal Entities Operating Under a DBA Name
3
eCFR. 31 CFR 1010.100 – General Definitions
4
eCFR. 31 CFR 1021.311 – Filing Obligations
5
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Currency Transaction Report Aggregation for Businesses with Common Ownership
6
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. FFIEC BSA/AML Examination Manual – Currency Transaction Reporting
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 5324 – Structuring Transactions to Evade Reporting Requirement Prohibited
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 5324 – Structuring Transactions to Evade Reporting Requirement
9
Internal Revenue Service. IRM 9.7.2 Civil Seizure and Forfeiture
10
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. FinCEN Form 104 – Currency Transaction Report
11
FFIEC BSA/AML InfoBase. Assessing Compliance with BSA Regulatory Requirements – Identification Required
12
FinCEN. FinCEN Ruling 2000-1 – Currency Transaction Reporting Guidance
13
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Form 8300 Reference Guide