Husband came in and redeemed two time certificates totaling over $19,000.00. The certificates were jointly held.
Since he took the cash, do we have to include the wife when we file a CTR?

You don't know that she benefits from the money, so no.
If it was a deposit you would include her.

Thanks, that's what I thought, but just wanted to be sure.

From posts over the years the general consensus is that you cannot go wrong by including all account-holders on CTRS for both deposits and withdrawals; it eliminates the guesswork.

The marital relationship isn't relevant. The issue is that the account has more than one owner. From one of the slides in the FinCEN webinar on the CTR, Form 112:

Q: How do I complete a FinCEN CTR when the funds are being deposited or withdrawn from a joint account?

Scenario: Person 1 deposits $15,000 in an account jointly owned by Customer A and Customer B.

The financial institution would file a CTR and complete a Part I for Person 1 (the transactor) by selecting Item 2b “Person conducting transaction for another" and a Part I for each, Customer A and Customer B, by selecting Item 2c “Person on whose behalf transaction was conducted”.

The emphasis is supplied, but note that it does not distinguish how you would treat withdrawals vs. deposits; the instruction applies to both.

Just back from a 4-day BSA conference and the concensus was that, in case of withdrawals, only the person doing the transaction needs to be listed on a CTR, unless you have actual knowledge that the transaction is done on behalf of the joint account owner/money will be used by the joint owner.

Examiners and FinCen agents were among the speakers and all of them (the question was raised during each presentation!) stated the same answer.

I would suggest that the presenters go back and read the official instructions for the new report that Ken quoted. These instructions will overwrite any and all previous FinCEN rulings. That is what is going to stick, not what someone said in a seminar. It is sad when official government presenters are not as familiar with the current literature as the banking community to whom they are presenting.

With all due respect to Ken, because he is my BSA Guru, - I am not sure that the one slide is the definitive answer on this.

I would call FinCEN and get an answer and the name of the person as the instructions that Compli refers to is how it has always been done, so FinCEN would have to come with something more direct than a slide to change that.

IMHO.

Yeah - and the more I read these types of questions, the more convinced I am that the entire cash reporting system should be overhauled to more resemble the reporting we provide to the Credit Reporting Agencies.

Set a trigger at a cumulative dollar threshold per month, and report a set amount of data for each account that meets or exceeds the threshold. To keep the criminals guessing, the threshold could be periodically changed - say $10,000 in a month for awhile, then down to $6,000, back up to $12,000, etc. It would be simply programming switch. Oh - and leave a tolerance of $100 so you don't get a picky auditor or examiner trying to nail you on a one cent discrepancy.

THEN - the SARs could focus on those silly folks who still try to structure as well as any set of related accounts where it appears the cash is being structured to avoid the automatic reporting threshold.

The focus of our resources should be on the SAR activity and NOT quibbling over how to fill out what section or box on the outdated CTR concept.

(Rant over - stepping off soapbox...

How about we upload all cash and wire data and they do with it what they will.
And no more SARs or CTRs for bankers.
That would be the ideal..!

"I would call FinCEN and get an answer and the name of the person as the instructions that Compli refers to is how it has always been done, so FinCEN would have to come with something more direct than a slide to change that."

Just an FYI - Actually the only time this was ever mentioned prior is a long ago rescinded release from 1995. It is probably time for a little clarification. If someone calls FinCEN, be sure to point out that this slide exists.

I don't think you can do away with SARs, but IMHO, the reporting format for CTRs (yes - even the "new" format) has come and gone.

This came up in a prior thread so I called the Helpline and mentioned the slide. They confirmed the answer that deposits and withdrawals were treated the same way; i.e. all owners are assumed to benefit. A competitor/friend called the Helpline later, did not mention the slide, and they gave her the gobbleygook answer; i.e. if the other person was not present, yada, yada, yada.

I would do a lot to eliminate this ridiculous issue, but if I had to defend my position to anyone I would prefer to point to what FinCEN said in writing (the slide) to what one of its representatives said on the Helpline or from the stage.

Not even Ken thinks his opinion is determinative.

How many hours and days have been wasted on this stupid question? Why can’t FinCEN just publish an official straight answer and dispatch this question to the dustbin? Surely, the HelpLine has better things to do than to respond to hundreds of variations and permutations of the question about joint accounts and withdrawals, and maybe, just maybe, bankers could move on to something that actually matters.