Tradespeople who insist on cash

[Oestrogelsmuggler]

I am trying to get a wood burner installed. I have been given a price by a local company, but was told it'd have to be in cash, or else I'd need to pay an extra 20%, even for a bank transfer.

This annoys me. It looks to me like an obvious tax dodge, for starters. Yet this seems standard among tradespeople these days. I find it offensive when the rest of us dutifully pay our tax.

It's also inconvenient. I resent having to get thousands of pounds out in cash. I can't get it easily in one visit to a cashpoint.

It's made me want to not give him the business - but unfortunately he's the only one who bothered to visit my house and give me a reasonable quote.

Am I being unreasonable?

No yanbu. It’s a tax dodge, or fraud in other words.
I’d persevere and find another company (and tell this one why).

The extra 20% is presumably the VAT he would have to charge if he takes a bank transfer (cos he can’t hide that from the VAT man) - so if you want the VAT to be paid, agree to pay by bank transfer?

The bonus is that he would then also have to pay income tax on it (assuming he may not declare the cash for income tax purposes).

So win, win - you pay the correct amount of VAT, he pays income tax.

In other words, you seem happy to take the discount for cash, but not pay the VAT if you don’t - so I’d question whether you actually want the right tax to be paid?

What slippery Lizzard said. Its VAT

Say “no thanks I don’t want the cash discount I will happily pay extra and do a bank transfer”

Just pay the additional 20% and transfer the money.

The extra 20% is VAT. So you can’t complain about having to pay the extra - if he has to pay his taxes then so do you!

Pay the extra 20% then, basically, the business is trying to save YOU the customer money.

I had a roofer last year that would only do the job if I paid in cash, for a £25k+ job. He asked me not to tell people that it was cash only. I used someone else, who happily accepted a bank transfer (and was much cheaper) and regularly tell people about the other roofer. The roofer I used did ask for a couple of thousand in cash to pay his roofers which I had no problem with, lots of tradespeople only pay their workers in cash.

I like your price, minus the Tax, but I don't want to pay it to you in cash so that you can easily avoid the Tax thus giving me the price I like.

Hmmmm I can see your issue.

It is a tax dodge - so you either pay in cash and avoid the VAT or you pay the extra 20% and pay the VAT

By paying cash (and I dont want to get into the morality of this) it is YOU who actually doesnt pay it - and the job remains off the books.

If you want to pay the tax because you morally feel you should - pay via bank transfer and the extra 20%

The choice is yours

Its a 'reasonable quote' because youre also not paying the tax!

Pay more and maintain the moral high ground

This is why we need to go cashless.

We had this for a roof! £10,000 cash or £12,000 by bank transfer. I paid 12,000. Choice is yours. I believe the saying is put your money where your mouth is.

I'd just pay by cash if that's what they prefer. Yabu

Yep, it is to avoid tax, clearly. Pay more if you don't want to pay cash/ be complicit in tax evasion. He's offered you a choice.

You're paying thousands!! For a log burner. You're being done anyway

You are being unreasonable.

Keep your nose out of other peoples tax affairs. You have zero evidence the company is not paying tax.

Have your burner installed, pay the man his cash and both of you are happy.

If you use Amazon and all the other multinational tax avoiders, you are being a bit of a hypocrite too. This installer would probably have to work 500 years to avoid paying the same tax that Amazon should be paying this month.

I voted YANBU because I think it’s unreasonable that so many tradespeople still try and dodge taxes.

But you’re being pretty naive to think they are charging extra to pay by bank transfer. It’s just the VAT.

@Hrpuffnstuff1 No, the trader is seeking to avoid his own obligations to pay income tax

And why should he get away with that? The rest of us pay tax on our income

^ This
Why do you want to pay more? 😂

You are fine with tax dodging?

He's not insisting on cash though is he. You have the option to pay by bank transfer but it will be 20% more to include vat. So paying by transfer will allow you to keep your morals but you can't have the price you want and pay in the way you want.

My Dsis tried everyone for a Wood burner cash aside it was hard to find someone to do it, it's a messy job when she did find someone I think he regretted starting it.

You wouldn't want to be allowing anyone without company insurance and the correct certificates to do the job.

No way to cash jobs on this one.

Tradesmen make a fortune on cash jobs and still pay a lot of tax on the jobs they submit.

Neighbours and friends always want a cash job because it is cheaper.

My Dbro owns a building company, he doesn't have a problem with staff doing cash jobs off site as long as they don't use company van or materials while doing it on their own time.

@Hrpuffnstuff1 No, the trader is seeking to avoid his own obligations to pay income tax

Not really as the customer paying the extra 20% will cover that. OP simply needs to pay the bank transfer cost and everything is above board then.