AIBU to refuse to pay cash in hand?

You can still fiddle books even with card payments. Card machines charge crazy rates. Lots of small businesses prefer cash

It's legal tender so perfectly fine to use.

@purpleflowersfordays yeah I think we probably have different priorities. I’m more worried about tax evasion, county lines gangs stealing our children’s childhood, human trafficking, child sexual exploitation and good old fashioned back handed corruption than being locked out of my account for a few days. I mean heaven forbid I have a back up account with £100 in for emergencies. The government do not want to control where you spend your money unless you are doing something illegal

I have an intense distrust of carpet fitters for this very reason. Even when I have been assured by the shop that the fitters will take bank transfer, the fitters will not leave unless they have cash. I am sure there are nice carpet fitters out there who don't know their bank details or bully a lone woman with children to go to the cash point in the pouring rain, I've just not met them. I assume that not all of their jobs go through the books.

From a moral point of view. My 17 year old nail tech who is also an apprentice and charges £20 cash, gets cash. She's just starting out in the world and the world is horrible.

I wrote a whole response to you and now the app has decided to lose that when I went to edit a typo.

But basically what I was saying is that already banks are controlling what we spend our money on, a poster mentioned ther locked account further up. My account was locked due to ordering a take away through a well known app and the system didn’t like it.

I get up early and go to work every day for my money so ill spend it on what i like, not on what the banks think is acrceptable.

And as recently as the late 90s/early 00s we had a lot of autonomy but those days are gone and for those who can’t see the government controlling our finances eventually are very naive indeed. It’s not the world I want my kids to live in but unfortunate they will with the way things are going.

Got to hand it to the government though as they’ve really brainwashed a lot of people into thinking it’s cash that the enemy.

Exactly this. I only go shoplifting at the weekends because when I do my main shops during the week I always pay at the till, so that’s fine.

Yanbu. Tax avoidance is not ok.

I changed window cleaner for this reason, amongst others. It’s inconvenient for me to go to a cashpoint every time they come around. I pay more to my new window cleaner but he’s offering a more professional service.

I voted You are being unreasonable, because quite honestly, I don't care that Fred the painter might pocket 50 quid extra without declaring it. Up to him if he wants to take the risk.
What I do care about is the tax avoidance of big business and government officials.
Will you be avoiding starbucks, apple, google ,Barclays, BT, Amazon and many more, to prove your point?

What “control” are you talking about?

It’s not difficult for the average person to understand if they want to.

Even MSE has an explainer for it.

I like the choice of cash if I want it, so I am being penalised. Once we go fully cashless then there is ultimate control over us as a society.

And we’re taxed regardless as they will always find something to tax us for. The government does love a good cash cow.

You weren’t happy with your gardener - if you were happy with their work and they did a good job you wouldn’t mind how they wanted to be paid, you’d just be glad that you found someone that does a good job doing the work that you don’t want to do. I hope there are lots of gardeners looking for work where you live otherwise you’ve cut your nose off to spite your face. Gardeners are like gold dust where I live, MIL can’t get anyone to do her garden.

I pay my hairdresser in cash, she does a great job and I am always left happy with my hair. What she does with the money is nothing to do with me.

I run a cash economy and get very annoyed by people who don't want to be paid in cash. And if you want some kind of phone transfer, forget it.

The only way you’re being penalised - is by being taxed more to cover the deficit caused by those who don’t pay tax from cash jobs which costs the country between £2.6bn and £10bn

I only use cash so would be fine with it.

I agree with this. I pay my cleaner cash in hand but I know she only does a little bit of work on the side. She's older and most of her time is taken up doing unpaid childcare for her daughters who are single mums and work full time. She probably wouldn't earn enough to pay tax even if it was put through the system.

My husband is a tradesperson and he will accept payment in whatever form the customer wants to make it. He does however do everything by the book, issues invoices and cash gets deposited into the bank. Our bank (in Canada) actually charges a fee for depositing cash, so he doesn't love that.

He gets very offended by dodgy customers who try to get him to accept cash because they think he is dodgy and happy not to declare it (for either income tax or sales tax) and so they think they can save sales tax. In his experience, tradespeople who work ONLY for cash are dodgy, and very likely to have no insurance and to disappear off the face of the earth if there's any problem with their work.
So I don't think it's unreasonable to refuse to pay cash in hand. By all means pay cash if they present a proper invoice and give a receipt.

So those who wish to use cash are penalised by criminal behaviour. It’s the majority penalised by the minority with this view.

The police should be doing more to tackle that rather than relying on people using cards instead of cash.

You really aren’t understanding the distinction between legal definitions and plain English, are you?

It’s absolutely essential for county lines and drug trade, human trafficking and tax fraud

That all happened under the last government too. Covid, Brexit, war in Ukraine. 11% peak inflation in 2022.

Some big companies don't pay the right tax so I don't mind paying window cleaner, hair dresser in cash.
Also there is a charge for transactions so it doesn't bother me at all

I get invoices from my window cleaner and pay him online. Also from the cleaning company, but come to think of it they offered me a lower rate ex-VAT if I paid cash. I didn't approve of that or agree to it, but I didn't report them either. Why not? Just don't want to snitch on people who in other ways I like and respect.

Cash is king and it needs to be kept in circulation.