
Quoting
Taxing Matters
The law is what it is. The job of the lawyer when advising you is to tell you what that law is. What you do with that information is up to you. If you violate the law, there is always the chance that you'll get caught and prosecuted for it. Of course not everyone is caught nor is everyone who is caught ultimately prosecuted. A lot of factors go into both. People make decisions about what to do based on what they know (or think they know) about those things as well as weighing the risk vs. reward.
Now, as it happens, I know several people involved with producing movies. They tend to be rather conservative in their approach to legal matters. They don't want to risk legal troubles for them or their company, especially when (1) the consequences of violating the law can be severe and (2) it's easy and cheap to follow the law and still get the results you want. So when it comes to things like portraying cash in movies, they simply follow what the rules are for that to avoid the possible severe consequence, even if it's not all that likely, that they'd be prosecuted and convicted of a federal FELONY offense. The rules are easy to meet, so it's a pretty straightforward decision to make.