Can't believe my cleaner just asked me this?!

[marplessparkles]

Cleaner texted me to ask if I could pay her cash this week (£60). I said sure, is it just for this week or is this something you want to do every week?

She replied if I could do it every week because she found out she and her partner can get housing benefit if she can prove she has a lower income, so obviously not declaring or paying tax on her cash jobs.

I'm a bit On a moral and ethical level I can't see how she is so blatantly happy in doing this; ripping of hard working taxpayers and councils who will have to fund her benefits.

AIBU to let her go?

YANBU as you are her employer. Up to you.

I would let her go yes or if she is otherwise good at her job then just refuse to pay her cash and say you don't want to be complicit in benefit fraud. It always amazes me the number of otherwise lovely people who think it's fine to cheat the system in various ways. I have collegues who pretend they don't live with their partners to claim benefits as a lone parent, tradesmen who won't take anything except cash, collegues who think nothing of knowingly buying stolen goods.

Honesty is something I'd put pretty high my list of things I looked for in a cleaner, who access to my home.

With that attitude, she could well be happy to steal from you too.

I'd get a new cleaner.

Good point Ellis, I think I too would find it hard to trust someone like this in my home.

Years ago many house cleaning jobs were cash in hand.

Nowadays its very different. My cleaner wont accept cash, she invoices once a month and you pay her through a bank transfer.

If she was a good cleaner i would keep her as they are hard to find.

As a client its not your problem if she doesnt pay tax on it. Its morally wrong but if she is a good cleaner then you could be cutting your nose off to spite your face.

However if shes open with people about what shes doing then this cash in hand work wont last 5 mins as someone is bound to report her.

That's pretty brazen.

I pay my cleaner cash but she's over 70, on a state pension and I'm her only client so she wouldn't be paying tax anyway would she?

I let a cleaner go because of this, as at the time I worked for the Local Authority she was proposing to defraud!

Did you report her scary?

in France it is called working on the black, and the person employing someone can be charged and face heavy fines

It annoys me when people think its ok not to pay social charges, especially when they benefit from them

I would let her go yes or if she is otherwise good at her job then just refuse to pay her cash and say you don't want to be complicit in benefit fraud.

THIS ^ from babyroob.

Tell her you will have to let her go. That's a terrible thing she's doing; claiming benefits, then pocketing loads of cash for cleaning. £60 from you, and Heaven knows how much from others.

Your cleaner really told you all that? I would have thought when you asked do you want cash every week, a yes please would suffice!

Are you new to MN, joined today and this is your first thread by any chance?

Sole I didn't, to my shame, but she was a single mum and trying to make ends meet. I felt losing her job was punishment enough.

Higgeldy It's called on the black in Belgium too, and lots do it here, as tax avoidance is the national sport.

Classed as tax fraud. If she shops you as her employer you could have hmrc breathing down your neck. Not worth it.

I think i'd question whether I would be comfortable with someone with this attitude around my personal posessions. Its not so much that she would steel, just that once the seed of doubt has been planted it would niggle away at me and sour things.

Slightly irrelevant but don't understand how a cleaner would cost £60 a week?! Do you have an enormous house?

You have to let her go otherwise you are an accessory to her crime. Fraud puts you away for longer than killing someone. If she hadn't told you then you would be ok to assume she is self employed and filling out correct paperwork herself. Accountants police officers etc can lose their licence for being party to this. Silly woman why did she so brazenly tell you?

I would sack her, and report her.

I would say no. And she is stupid to say this to you.
Cleaners are often paid in cash, but not for this reason.

Where I used to work we paid the cleaner cash. Her pay went through HMRC so was declared. But she didn't have a bank account.

In Wales it is called the black economy everything seems to work by paying cash for labour.

I have seriously never heard of a cleaner not being paid in cash. None of them appear to be raking it in , at £10 an hour max round here. And every workman I have had charges more to be paid not in cash. I'm impressed at how virtuous others seem to be.

I would not risk it! It's not legal and shows she doesn't care about her responsibliities which could impact on you in many ways.