AIBU to be so sick of tradespeople/ cleaners asking for cash in hand?

People tend to want to keep their income low for tax but then wonder why they can’t get a mortgage when they can easily afford it

So your partner refuses to use cash full stop? That’s crazy!

No because the VAT was more like £350

All tradespeople I have used recently have used bank transfer. Too big a sum to pay in cash tbh....

Paying cash to trades or the cleaner doesn’t bother me. Even my osteopath asks to be paid in cash.

Yeah but tax isn’t being paid into the system

You aren't just cheating the government though. You may be cheating their kids.
We have a much tougher life because ExH dodges his proper contribution by earning cash in hand

I have to pay tax on everything I earn. And I am working through disability and chronic illness (yet it is too fluctuating to get benefits), so I think there's no excuse for others to shirk paying their share

The price difference is roughly the VAT element

Registering for vat is a whole world of complication for the business owner, so I can see why people try to avoid that. Having said that, we had workmen do our extension and wanted us to pay cash. £45k in cash?!?! First of all, no. I work for the nhs and that’s just wrong in so many ways. Second, how the hell am I going to take £45k out of the bank without triggering some sort of investigation. Dodgy AF. We still went with them though as they gave the best price and even the building inspector admired their work when he checked it all off.

It's.not.just the tax avoidance either. ExH gets a lot of his income cash in hand which means his barely has to pay any child maintenance. I work through illness and disability to fund my children's lives.

It's a kind of theft and I refuse to participate in it. I pay everyone by bank transfer

I have people asking 'how much for cash?' answer is the same as if you pay by transfer or the card machine.

Mostly my work is just my time and expenses with some materials from time to time, paying cash into a business account cost £1.75 per £100! card machine cost 1.75% of transaction

Or maybe everyone should just be paying what they should be paying. Not paying appropriate tax doesnt stop the welfare system.. Just passes the buck to someone esle who works just as hard. Why do you assume trades work harder than anyone esle?

Gosh same here in Ireland, really difficult getting someone to do something without paying in cash, DD has a girl who comes here to do her nails and it's cash only, she's always booked up so plenty of clients and I do see her advertising on FB. Same with my hairdresser cash only, she comes to the house so it can be anything from 100 - 300 euro. 2 of my sister's have cleaners and both have to pay in cash, they tell me that it's extremely difficult getting someone who takes bank transfers.

I worked in an estate agent (only admin) and I remember the trades people with a 200k deposit but earning 30k per annum. They could only get a mortgage for a set amount x their salary so had to save a massive deposit. I always wondered why they didn’t go legit for a few years. Maybe they had to produce a lot of years or maybe it was easier to have 200k in savings.

This. A system that disincentivises honesty is going to get dishonesty.

If you’re on the threshold why on earth would you risk going over it? Loose a decent percentage of your income or raise your prices and loose past customers, or in reality probably both. If the system had a sliding scale of VAT owed or a timescale to pay which allowed contractors to gradually raise their prices then you’d get a lot less of this.

We had the opposite situation when my husband was due to go over the £100k threshold and we’d loose 20k in free childcare hours. So obviously he stayed on £99 until his income went to £120. The system puts you over a barrel.

As an employee I pay my taxes but I also enjoy the benefits of sick pay, paid leave, a HR department and so on.

Some posts in this thread smack of ‘I don’t like that manual workers might earn a decent wage’

I only pay a small monthly fee. If i wanted to deposit cash or make international transfers that would be chargeable. I assumed that was fairly standard.

Yes, personal experience. I use Royal Bank of Scotland. The first 2 years of business bank were free but they charge after that. As a small business I also get charged for change from the bank (fair enough) which is why I prefer card payments.

They're money laundering and a front for organised crime.

OP isn't being unreasonable, I refuse to pay cash to any trader. It shouldn't just be some of us paying tax and the cleaner may well be a benefits chest.

Is this based on experience and if so of which bank, as mine charged for neither on my business account?

I don't think takeaways and other shops that say they prefer or only accept cash are necessarily seeking to cheat their taxes.

Often, they're just trying to avoid unnecessary bank fees - so they can pay themselves/wages direct from income rather than having to bank it first and lose a chunk before they access it again.

Of course, some of them may well be cheating on their tax as well; but it's far from a given. After all, whilst a tradie can claim that they've worked much less than they actually have, it would be much harder to hide and lie when everybody can clearly see your constant stream of customers in your high street premises.

Business bank accounts charge for money going in (and money going out)

YANBU

Our lovely cleaner and any other tradesperson we use such as the man who services our boiler ask for bank transfers.

Totally agree.

Small businesses and sole traders make up 62% of the total unpaid tax in the UK, despite being a much smaller percentage of the total tax (~20%).
(Granted, this also includes tax mistakenly not paid)

What bank charges would she be paying?

How do they avoid business rates if they’re running a business in the high streets?
I think there are more to nail bars than meets the eye anyway.