Advice needed. DN worked over summer ‘cash in hand’ and owner won’t pay now.

[NaturalBlondeYeahRight]

This is all news to me. I knew she had a job at a local shop in her village while home from uni but didn’t know it was cash in hand. The owner has other employees. Worked for six weeks straight and is owed over £1000. Now she has finished to go back and he is ignoring her texts and calls. Don’t want to go straight in with threat to report them just in case but we don’t have much option do we? Anyone come across this kind of thing before. She is relying on this money. A lesson had definitely been learnt but what would you do?

Is there anything written to confirm a job offer and salary payment? Also… cash in hand…
HMRC would have a field day if they found out they were paying employees cash in hand and not paying tax…

I would approach the owner and tell them that they need to pay this, and pay it through the books to avoid any further implications otherwise you’ll be reporting to HMRC. See how quick they move then!!!

https://www.acas.org.uk/if-your-wages-are-not-paid

Raise a grievance
Take to employment tribunal

Does she have any proof that she worked there? Photos of rotas, what's app messages, texts, emails?

She needs to go in and ask for payment, don’t leave it and let it play out. I would follow up with a letter / email stating hours worked and pay missing, give a deadline. State if not it will go to small claims court. Your best bet will be to get others to put pressure on and make sure it’s known - e.g mentioning to other employees to warn them. Asking his family if something has happened to his phone as you aren’t getting responses.

Has she been paid anything at all? Obviously a bit late now but to let it go 6 weeks was foolish .
I’d deffo threaten with HMRC but plead ignorant that I knew it was cash in hand & be prepared to declare it for tax and NI purposes . If shes a student and that’s all she’s earned this year she won’t be liable anyway

Same goes for the OP's DN. Everyone has been dodgy here.

Agreeing to work cash in hand paints your DN in a bad light, her employers clearly expect if they don't pay your DN will be afraid to report them because she's been willing to break the rules to get more money. Well to hell with that, I'd tell the shopkeeper they pay up or you're reporting them to every body you can think of - I'm sure if they have other staff the tax office would be very interested

There’s no rule to say that she can’t be paid cash. She may not even have to pay any tax if she’s only been working over the summer. And she’s not actually been paid anything so hasn’t underpaid tax anyway.

It didn't get as far as tribunal but my dh did this when one of our dc were in the same situation, the bussiness paid up !

She can say she was working self employed and will do a tax return.

I would absolutely be doing a small claims court claim for this and also naming and shaming them locally if they wouldn't pay up.

agree go in and ask for payment, follow up with a letter setting out hours worked & what was agreed & ask them to pay and then if that doesn’t work go onto the ACAS website & register for Early Conciliation

then a conciliation officer is appointed, tell them what’s happened & they’ll get in touch with the employer

that will likely be enough to get the employer to pay up

if not the best way to recover the £ is an employment tribunal claim but I bet acas will help get it sorted

You can’t just decide to be self employed - shop work is unlikely to meet the criteria. The employer is responsible for deducting tax, so they have underpaid at the moment not OPs daughter

No, it doesn't work like that. You can't just say "I'm self-employed!" if you are being employed at a consistent place at consistent times.

She has plenty of time to register as self employed and file a tax return. The shop owner will be in much more trouble for taking her on and not paying NI etc, taking advantage of someone who needed work, and then not paying her. But she needs some kind of evidence.

You reap what you sew

No crime in being paid cash

This.

I used to live on a popular seafront and a few businesses had chancer managers like this taking advantage of teenagers. Send Dad down there to enquire and it will all turn out to be “a misunderstanding”.

It doesn't matter what she does. Working as staff in a shop can never count as "self employed".

I was typing on the hop, but the point I am trying to make is that the onus and fault is very much on the shop, not her.

She hasn't been paid cash and had a chance to not declare or not submit a tax return for it yet. She started a job and he agreed to pay her the next amount she was due in cash rather than into a bank account.

Back in the day your weekly wages for casual work as a teenager in the hols WERE cash in hand , accompanied with a payslip in the same envelope!

"Cash in hand" doesn't mean actual notes, these days.

She wouldn't have been the one submitting a tax return, it would have been PAYE by the shop. Which she doesn't seem to have had a problem with not happening.

Similar happened to a young lad in my city recently. His mum took the matter into her own hands with positive results! Worcester News

I thought the whole point of cash in hand was to get paid in cash after each working day. If shes worked for 6 weeks and had no pay shes worked for free and the employer has taken the piss by paying nothing.

I'd get her to go in the shop with her dad/other males and ask for her wages in a big confident voice so any one else in the shop hears and see what happens.
I would happily threaten public shaming on local SM for this and follow through if needed.

Regarding all the silly comments about cash in hand above, she's a student, presumably not working a full time job and not earning anything near £12750 which is the point at which having to pay income tax kicks in... no need for all those comments!
IF you don't get the money then I'd happily report him to to the tax man and anything else like food hygiene you think could cause him grief and he's likely to fail...

No. "Cash in hand" is basically fiddling tax. On both sides.

To be honest, DN is not very worldly wise- I think she just got offered a summer job after handing out her CV and thought the owner (rightly tbh) does the paperwork. It’s only as it’s gone on that we questioned her more. She has texts of rotas, a uniform and texts of impending payments that haven’t happened. The whole family have been through the wringer this year so didn’t want to burden family with worries until too late. Dad has died unfortunately. If I were nearby I’d be storming in but DSis is nervous and a worrier. He (the owner) seems to be taking a huge risk in my opinion- it’ll deffo cost him more than he owes DN.