Paying people cash in hand

[stretchmarkqueenie]

I've been told by the lady I use to do my ironing that she would now like cash payment rather than the usual bank transfer. It's making me feel uneasy, and personal preference I know, I don't like carrying cash on me. Just wondered others views on paying people cash in hand?

I don't mind paying cash in hand for some things, but having to remember to have the right amount of cash on me every week would get annoying. Not sure I'd feel uneasy, just slightly irritated.

Perfectly normal I think for this sort of work- is so low value I think it’s quite normal for them to get cash there and then rather than spend time balancing books etc.

In terms of feeling uneasy carrying cash- it’s not much surely?

I think I feel uneasy about why would she want to switch. It's often £50+, so not exactly what I just carry round on me

Paying cash isn’t the same as cash in hand. Cash in hand is where someone is avoiding tax or vat or both. Lots of legitimate businesses take cash

I think it's fairly normal for that kind of work.

Same here- we pay a guy to mow our lawn every few weeks, and for the last 2 months he’s been “moving his bank account” and wants to be paid in cash.

It’s really annoyed me as we don’t keep cash in the house regularly, and I hate hanging around either waiting for him to appear to pay him or leaving the money under the mat when it’s obvious he’s just trying to manipulate his bank records.

Glad you understand dinosaurkisses! It's clearly the most convenient thing to do a bank transfer. If she wants the cash then surely just withdraw it after. I'm clearly struggling for time as a working mum as I can't do my own ironing and always look like I'm running around disorganised. I feel like it's adding another thing to my to do list which is already massive!

Paying cash isn’t the same as cash in hand. Cash in hand is where someone is avoiding tax or vat or both. Lots of legitimate businesses take cash

Exactly. Would you feel uneasy paying in cash at the supermarket?

If it's a business bank account she will be charged bank fees for every transaction, depending on the type. Therefore she may be asking for cash payment to reduce her bank fees.

Perhaps she just needs the money straightaway?

Are you paying her a day later?

A small business like hers wouldn't be a business bank account. I'd tell her I will not be changing my method of payment!

Surely people equate paying cash in hand with not declaring earnings for tax because that's what those people who don't declare all their earnings do rather than that's what everyone paid cash in hand does?

I pay her the money straight away, she often even confirms it when she drops the ironing back to me. So I don't think it's to do with getting the cash late.

If it was to avoid business account fees, I’d have no problem paying an extra £1 or so to facilitate paying electronically. That should at least be offered as an option if you’re trying to appeal to customer’s as a convenient, easy to use service provider.

In my own case, the reason that I’m so irritated I should that we’ve been given a bullshit excuse that gardener is swapping bank accounts- so what was previously a case of transferring a tenner to him directly using my phone has now changed to me having to always have cash on me, or walk into the village to use the atm when I inevitably forget!

Bank transfer means she has to contact the bank to see if it's been received and cleared. Not everybody uses online banking, so that could involve phone costs or travel costs.

Then she has to go to a cash point and physically withdraw it if she wanted cash in the first place to pay her costs. So, time, travel and potentially two bank charges depending on the account.

Certainly at least one charge for receiving the transfer, when she didn't even want it electronically. If it's a small business and she's not making much money, every unnecessary cost counts and they can add up fast.

Assume you meant convenient for you though, not her. If transfer was convenient for her she wouldn't be asking for cash.

I would imagine she has been overdrawn on her bank account and the payments are going to pay that back so she doesn’t get to spend it. Or money is going out straight away on DD or SO.

Just popping on to say I think, if you can and have somewhere safe, it’s a good idea to have some ready cash in the house. Emergency taxi home, cash points not working and - recently - whole payment system failure in shops. Maybe I should go and spend some time in the prepper forum...

I do get that it’s inconvienient and I completely agree (working mother here too!) but I’ve always taken the view that if you want to use them you have to put up with the way they chose to work

The thing is you don’t know her personal business, she could be into her overdraft and need the cash. She could be going straight off to do the weekly shop ? Who knows

If she’s avoiding paying tax then is likely she’s just above the £11,000 and she’s trying to keep it under that allowance. Let’s face it she’s not google or amazon level tax dodging.

Pay her the cash and be glad you’re not the person ironing others clothes for a living but paying someone else to do it.

She probably wants to hide it from HMRC

I wouldn't mind at all unless it was a really inconvenient amount like £12,53 per week.

It could very well be to do with an overdraft like someone above says.

If it doesn't work for you then of course find someone new to do it. No need to be shirty about it. Both views are entirely reasonable

Plenty of very small businesses have a separate business account. Otherwise you potentially have to provide your personal bank statements to an accountant to prepare your tax return, or sit and pick out all the business transactions from your personal ones.

Plus it risks putting yourself in the position where HMRC can legitimately request access to personal bank statements when they otherwise would not have been able to do so if you'd kept the business funds separate. Many people don't want to be in that position.

That would irritate me because I find remembering to pay cash a real pain. I used to pay my cleaner in cash but had to let her go recently. I only just realised that remembering to get the cash out was actually stressful. I wouldn't mind doing it and I wouldn't begrudge her the tax avoidance (let's be honest here, we all know that's the most likely reason for it) but then again she may be doing to commit fraud (benefits fraud of some kind like tax credits for example or child maintence fraud if she has children that aren't living with her) which I am less inclined to facilitate. At the end of the day you don't have to say yes.

We pay cash for our cleaner as she too doesn’t wish for it to go in her account.

Set a reminder on your phone to draw cash out when you do your weekly shop.

It’s not that hard.

A small business like hers wouldn't be a business bank account. I'd tell her I will not be changing my method of payment!

It hard running a small business. What a shame people aren’t prepared to make a small compromise to help the small business out.

Don’t assume people are trying to dodge tax. Under the trading allowance rules (www.gov.uk/guidance/tax-free-allowances-on-property-and-trading-income#trade here on HMRC website) you can earn up to a £1,000 without declaring it and it is purposely for odd jobs such as this.

www.gov.uk/guidance/tax-free-allowances-on-property-and-trading-income#trade

Fgs
Its not like its millions
Just get the bloody money out of a local cashpoint
You sound hardwork