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?

She won't need to do a tax return, she's not self employed, you can't just decide to be self employed. HMRC decide, can phone them to be certain but would be amazed if they would agree that's self employed.

What utter codswallop and very disingenuous to accuse everyone in the gig economy who works cash in hand of being on the fiddle.

The hospitality industry is rife with this stuff going on. I side hustle and am registered self employed. I work with loads of teenagers and they are all clueless to employment and tax affairs and get exploited mercilessly. It's deeply unfair to blame teenagers that get little to no financial education.

I would advise writing out all the hours and dates worked, set out clearly the amount owed for work completed, give this to the business owner along with a letter clearly stating a date for settlement of the debt. State that legal redress will be sought after this date and further legal advice will be taken. Follow up with a letter before action and then raise a small claims. I imagine that they will pay up sharpish as the possibility of this going legal and HMRC getting involved is seriously not worth it for them. They rely on naive teens but back down when challenged generally.

Yes you can - you can be self employed, have one employer/client, work regular hours at the same location and do your tax return, it's not that unusual at all.

Entirely depends on what she agreed or signed - usually of course if you are self employed it is you, the "employee" who raises a monthly invoice stating hours worked.

OP, I would encourage your DN to set out in writing (does the employer have an email address? Or registered post) confirming the hours worked, money owed, make it clear that they have retained considerable evidence of being employed, and either asking for it be paid into her account by xx date or arranging to pay in cash on the premises at xx time and date and that failure to do so will result in getting advice from ACAS. And if they don’t pay up, contact ACAS. When DN gets the money, report the employer to HMRC for failing to pay wages on time and not providing a payslip.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of working ‘cash in hand’, there’s every chance this is a straight up case of an employer completely taking the piss out of a naive young worker and really shouldn’t get away with it.

edited to add - and holiday pay! Include that in the details of money owed.

Of course it does. She has done nothing wrong legally in accepting that she would be paid in cash. It is up to the employer to ensure that the legal aspects such as NI, tax and pension (if applicable) are dealt with and the relevant authorities get their returns.

She also does not need to register for tax or do her own tax returns - she was clearly an employee and the responsibility lies with the employer.

This will feel awful for her, but a lesson learned early is one worth having. You never trust an employer. Luckily she is at university already and so has probably not realsied that she is a member of a union! The NUS. If he won't pay up - and he would be stupid not to do so - then if she contacts the NUS they will support her through making a legal claim to a tribunal.

Two different formal options if she raises with the employer (in writing) and they don't pay up.

Report to HMRC for non payment of NMW- Acas can put you through or you can fill in the online form here: https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/digital-forms/open/form/pay-and-work-rights-complaint/draft/start#1

Hmrc will assess the situation and can take action against the employer.

Option 2, the Employment Trubunal route. Before you do that, you notify Acas and are offered early conciliation which is where a conciliator will speak to her and the employer to try and resolve the issue out of court. This route can cover other issues like no payslips and unpaid holiday pay. https://www.acas.org.uk/early-conciliation There is a bit of a backlog with cases getting allocated at the moment.

You can't do both- if you have started the tribunal route, including EC then HMRC won't investigate.

Nowt wrong with being paid cash, only if you enter into agreement to deliberately avoid paying tax. I'm sure that wasn't her intention and the employer would 1)not have evidence of that 2)be condemning themselves at the same time.

Thx is totally, utterly & more importantly legally wrong.

To be self employed you have to fulfil several criteria & working in a shop like this does not fulfil any of them.

please stop spouting as fact nonsense that you know nothing about.

OPs niece has done nothing wrong. The onus is on the employer. An employee is not expected to know what information payroll needs, just to provide it when asked.

I would definitely speak to ACAS. This page might help. https://www.acas.org.uk/if-your-wages-are-not-paid/raising-an-issue-with-your-employer

And yes, she is absolutely entitled to holiday pay.

Citizens advice had a protocol for people who were owed money from employers , whether that was holiday pay or whatever. Its probably on their website.

Thank you all for this great info. Going to pass it on on to her/Dsis. It’s made me so mad at the ‘boss’ as they are really going through it as a family and DN thought (hoped) it would turn out ok.

He will put it through his books as an outgoing. Why wouldn't he, it's an expense so reducing his tax bill.
She just needs to get her pay.

First the £1000 reduces his tax bill, then he doesn't hand over the cash, so double benefit to him.
Just get the pay owed.

You should be doing more than boycotting said pub, you should be seeking to get the licence revoked where a pub is not paying people.

I know rather a lot about it, being self employed myself, with one client and regular hours.

What I'm saying is its not illegal, however it is unlikely to be satisfied in OPs daughters case.

Employment status can be messy- and different for tax status and employment rights. This gives a breakdown of the different areas to consider. https://www.acas.org.uk/employment-status

Why don't you want to confront him? It's slavery if he made her work unpaid. I'd help her work out precisely what she is owed, write down the hours and every day she was there, then call him and record the call, explaining that if she isn't paid in full right now, you will shop him to HMRC and report him to the police too.

Then I'd make it very public on FB local pages that he didn't pay her and to warn other employees that they might not be paid.

A verbal agreement constitutes a contract.

She hasn’t done anything wrong as she hasn’t been paid. If she had been paid without a payslip that would be different but even then it’s the employers responsibility to deduct the tax at source. The employer who hasn’t paid has however broken the law and I suggest she brings a claim for unlawful deductions of wages and failure to provide a s 1 statement. It’s free to bring and the employer will soon pay up I suspect.

She hasn’t done anything wrong as she hasn’t been paid. If she had been paid without a payslip that would be different

It wouldn't be different. She has done nothing wrong, full stop. It is all on her employer. Being paid in cash is not illegal. That does not mean she has or intended to do anything illegal. If he has failed to provide a written statement, payslips and pay, or intended to employ her without declaring it, it is all on him.

I would inform hin, that I will be sitting outside his premises with a large sign, every morning until he pays, while live streaming my embarrassing moment.

This!!!
If she is are prepared to do a dodgy deal more fool her!

Nothing dodgy about working a casual cash in hand job over her holidays. The only dodgy one is the person not paying her,

Small claims court process us far quicker and easier than employment tribunal.

Write a letter of claim setting iut

1. date employment started (attach relevant email / messages evidencing this)
2. The agreed hourly rate (ditto)
3. a schedule of days / hours worked
4. the total sum owed (hours x hourly rate)
5. a deadline for payment. If this missed then will commence proceedings for recovery without further correspondence

It’s an online claim process easy to use and will cost little.

Don’t be silly. She hasn’t done anything dodgy at all. It’s perfectly legal to pay and be paid in cash.

Both my DC did paper rounds as did many of their friends. They were paid in cash each week. They were way under any threshold for paying tax, and under 16 in any case, presumably the paper shop did what they needed to do to fulfil their legal duties.
They also did a small amount of catsitting for cash.

In what way do you think a young person getting small amounts of cash is dodgy?

It is, that is true. But he did not provide her with wage slips and he failed to provide a written statement, both of which are separate claims and worth money in themselves. So since she is clearly never working there again, she may as well teach him the entirety of the lesson and make a larger claim 😀Rogue employers deserve what they get, and if she's not going to walk away from what he owes her that she has worked for, she may as well go the whole hog. It won't get to tribunal anyway, because he'd be an absolute idiot letting it - ACAS will tell him he'll lose and he would be best to settle.

A tribunal can award up to 13 weeks of average pay for no wage slips; I think it's about the same for lack of the written terms document too. In practice it'll likely be a few weeks each, but it's money in her pocket, and it's a slam dunk because both claims exist when an employer breaches another law - such as not paying her. So I'd be claiming what she is owed, holiday pay, and 2/3 weeks average wage for each of the other claims, and tell him to pay up or she will see him in a tribunal.