Joiner charging £15 for invoice

[clothearedpotatohead]

Had someone come out a couple of weeks ago to do a small job.

Quoted £55. Came and did it, all good.

Asked after if he needs my email for the invoice. Crickets.

2 weeks later he’s come back and said it’s £55 cash or £70 with an invoice. “Let me know which works best for you”

I think it’s bullshit. He obviously doesn’t want to declare his income (again, bullshit – pay your taxes) and if he wanted to charge £15 for an invoice he should have said so in advance.

He is in the long term, though, as he will probably get a lot more work than honest traders who include/make allowance for tax and/or VAT in their quoted prices and thus look significantly more expensive than he is for the same thing

He only quoted the £55 initially, with no mention of VAT/tax and a higher price to legally include it, so he was obviously expecting to undercut his honest competitors from the start.

Morals aside, it might have been different if he'd given OP the two different price 'options' from the start, so they both knew where they stood. Indeed, if OP were dishonest, she could have taken the £55 as the legitimate baseline price, all-in, and then asked him to accept £45 for cash, to avoid the taxman, without realising he'd already allowed for it!

He’s not having to chase for payment!

I wanted to pay him immediately but he didn’t reply for 2 weeks

Paying by cash is not illegal.
Not declaring it is another matter.
I'm self employed.
I accept BACS and cash whatever is easier for the client.
I have a mix of both.
I declare it all.

On jobs for less than a £100 I always offer cash. Life is tough for small businesses

Give over. It's tax evasion by billionaires that's costs us, not by people just trying to scrape by under the sociopathic government who enable their billionaire tax dodging friends

I can’t believe so many peopel are defending tax evasion. No wonder public services are so bad if so many peopel think it’s ok to not pay tax

Quite.

It always astonishes me that Mumsnetters will rail against lack of spending on services, but on the other hand are quite happy to see trades people steal money from the Treasury and hence these very services. White van man costs this country a fortune.

And there's always some wazzock who tries to make paying out paying tradies the second they finish is somehow moral. I used to work in construction and you should NEVER pay immediately. You've got no leverage if something goes wrong. Most of the time it's difficult to get them back even if you are holding a percentage retention. It's hardly worth their while, so they certainly aren't coming back if you've paid in full.

Decent tradespeople aren't scraping by. If they've got a good reputation, they never go short of work.

My immediate reaction was its two weeks later, you haven't paid him, so he is giving you fair warning that if you don't pay up, he will invoice you and you will be paying for his extra time to chase a payment that should have been paid already.

It's nothing to do with VAT, it interest on late payment and wasting his chargeable time

Just pay what you owe FFS.

Have you read the OP's posts? She wasn't there on the day (which the guy knew in advance and was fine with) so couldn't give cash. She emailed asking for the invoice, which would have included the bank details she needed, and he took 2 weeks to get back to her.

How could she have paid earlier?

LOL 🤦🏻

I hadn’t paid him because when I asked him about payment (immediately after the job) he didn’t reply to my message for 2 weeks. He didn’t ask for cash or indeed any payment at all – I initiated the conversation about payment. He didn’t reply.

He hasn’t had to chase anything.

Interest on late payment 😂 You literally haven’t even read the OP or any of the numerous follow ups stating really clearly what has happened

I would not pay a tradesman without some sort of paper trail - a written invoice stating what work was carried out and for how much. OP not unreasonable at all to request one and ANY decent tradesman would provide one.

Once paid I would then expect a receipt to prove that I had actually paid, by whatever means that was.

Do you offer a 20% reduction for "nudge nudge wink wink" cash??

No, I thought not!

Black economy tax evasion (that's "normal" people) could cost the country up to £40 BILLION yearly according to some reports.

Yes, indeed. Whilst a lot of people do specifically ask for cash so that they can avoid paying their fair taxes, a great many just prefer the flexibility of cash.

Also, if you're a sole trader/small business holder, with your income (after costs and taxes) being effectively your wages, you can perfectly legitimately and legally avoid paying earned cash into your business bank account and then withdrawing it again, and thus avoid unnecessary business transaction charges. All entirely above board, as long as you declare all your earnings to the taxman.

This why some honest traders/small businesses prefer cash and may give a (small) discount for cash: to save paying bank and card transaction charges.

It's also a very good point made upthread that, without paperwork, not only do you have no guarantee or comeback for faulty work, but the trader could very easily point-blank deny that he's ever met you, let alone done work for you.

That’s not what’s going on here (although appreciate it might be relevant in some cases) – he literally said if he invoices it he puts it through his accounts (ie records it) and that’s why it’s more

No, absolutely not - your 'chummy' here is definitely dishonest and trying to fiddle his income - whether to be able to offer more competitive illegally-low prices or avoid income tax, VAT, child maintenance and/or anything else.

I (with others) was just responding to the suggestion from PP that anybody who asks for payment in cash is clearly on the fiddle, when this is not always the case.

If he has been stupid enough to send you this information by SMS or email then he has left a paper trail.

I have spoken to a couple of trades and they use SMS and email as a paper trail to deal with non-paying customers.

Though at the moment he's unlikely to be dealt with by HMRC as they don't have enough staff.

Billionaires aside, I'm amazed at the number of people on here - many of whom are themselves presumably not stinking rich and are 'average' earners, losing a large chunk of their income in taxes - are trying to make excuses for busy, well-earning tradesmen seeking to keep all of their income. They aren't little kiddies trying to get a few more sweeties with their pocket money.

Quite! Especially when people get in such a froth about benefits claimants – which is tiddling by comparison in terms of the burden on taxpayers.

I'm in the process of divorcing a guy who went from being an employed electrician to being self employed. It's all come out in the divorce that he was likely doing a lot of cash in hand jobs, because his declared income isn't anything like expected or what he was clearly earning.

Obviously in my situation this affects just me. We didn't have kids together. But it makes you wonder how many of these cash in hand guys are wriggling out of paying fair child maintenance.

It's not right, and I don't do it myself (I'm SE, everything goes through my books, and cash is a PITA for me as it necessitates a trip to the bank so I can use it to pay my bills), but I am more comfortable with the cash-in-hand people than the billionaire tax avoidance lot. The former's cash will go straight back into the local economy, whilst the latter's will sit hoarded and unused in offshore accounts.

OP, you aren't wrong, as you are entitled to an invoice if you want one, but are an anomaly as a trade person's customer. I have a trade. Most customers send me a text after the job to thank me and ask for my bank details, although some will do this verbally on my way out or pay cash before I go. They may ask for clarification or a reminder of the cost in case things have changed from the original quote (rare it has, and from my part this has always been clear at the time of doing the work, but it's always appreciated customers ask rather than assume I do all the extra out of goodwill). I send my details and am paid 90% of the time within 12hrs, as terms are payment upon completion. I write maybe 3 invoices a year. Usually it's only when I've worked for a business or landlord, but possibly one a year is a regular householder. I have never had it requested for such a small job where is it a personal expense in 18 years of self-employment.
For a small £50 job, as a SE person whose admin time is limited and who has essentially already formed an audit trail with text messages and a bank transfer, I would provide an invoice but not rush to return to work for you, as it isn't worth the extra work (particularly as I have often already come out to look at and quote the job for free). I would be much happier if I could justify charging an extra £15 for providing the invoice, as it accurately reflects the additional work of writing and delivering it (I do so few, mine are still paper-based), but as I don't charge extra for them, I would either avoid you in future, or build a 'PITA cost' into any future quotes.
Were the original communications by text? If so, I'd just pay the £55 by bank transfer and be done with it.

I get it, I’m self-employed!

Admin costs me time.

I would be happy with bank transfer but he wants cash. I just asked for the invoice as every other tradesperson I’ve used in the last 3 years has always wanted to send me an invoice, so I just offered my email for the invoice and payment details without thinking too much about it.

Besides the fact I don’t support tax dodgers (or those avoiding child maintenance), I also just don’t like the way he’s gone about things.

I wouldn’t be in a hurry to call him again so it’s no worries if he feels the same!

Always ask for a written quotation.

The “admin” costs of issuing an invoice (next to nothing) should be built in to the price. If a tradesman wanted cash on the day I would expect them to say when quoting/arranging date so i had money ready but would much rather pay by bank transfer. Would never pay anything significant in cash like roof repair - need to have some proof of what they’ve done in case of a botch.

Taxguru upthread is right - everyone thinks this small scale tax evasion is ok but it’s not. Costs public purse a fortune in revenue needed for essential services. Allows those doing it to avoid their responsibilities like CMS, PAYE and national insurance. Do you think someone working like that has liability insurance? Not a chance. Paying their own NICs or pension contributions? Nope. Some of them will be claiming in-work benefits like tax credit based on vastly under reported earnings. Many will employ others on a cash in hand basis, with no employers’ liability insurance.

What they often do is spend every penny they get during their working life. Reach state pension age with hardly any contributions and no private pension. Claim means tested top ups till they die. They contribute fuck all and take anything they can get off the state.

So when your car/kid/granny is struck by a roof tile dropped by your uninsured cash-in-hand workman tough luck.