AIBU to refuse to pay cash in hand?

[Dontasksillyquestions]

This recently came up in conversation with a friend and she disagreed with me.

I generally avoid hiring anyone who asks to be paid cash in hand. I don’t see how cash is more convenient these days unless it’s to avoid tax, benefits rules, etc., and I don’t want to be involved. I also rarely carry cash and getting to a cash machine is inconvenient.

Last year I stopped using a regular gardener when he suddenly asked for cash only, despite there being no payment issues (I always transferred the money on the day he’d done the work). My friend thinks I’m being ridiculous and that it’s none of my concern how people run their business. AIBU?

Dream on in riding tax. May increase spending but it would only be in what THEY want. How many times do they ask the public what to spend taxes on?

I’ve always paid gardener, cleaner etc. in cash. If that’s what they prefer I am happy to pay that way.

Do you really think though that the SE tradesmen are the enemy and if they were honest the NHS, councils, schools etc, would no longer lack proper funding?! People selling clothes on Vinted are apparently supposed to do self assessments, ‘spose they’re the reason no one’s fixing the potholes 😂

Bit of a tangent, but stamp duty was a temporary measure to fund military efforts. But it proved such a good way of squeezing money out of us they decided to leave it. They would tax the air we breathe if they could.

I’m only jealous I can’t find a way to pay less tax because I’m employed.

You are so naive I’m stunned, I’ve just posted about stamp duty as an example, it was literally introduced in the 1600’s to fund military efforts and they kept it because it made them so much money. Have you not read about things like the subsidised restaurant in the House of Commons?! I’m constantly seeing post about people trying to save money and not eating or putting the heating on and MP’s get subsidised restaurants?!

They would not reduce taxes, that’s why they do things like stop funding nursing degrees but still give MP’s a payrise

In some countries, dodging tax is practically a national sport. I know because I’ve lived in one, and I still have family in places like that. The dog-eat-dog society it creates is not something I want for the UK. If that’s your ideal, maybe move there.

And no, the fact that the rich pull dodgy stunts, or that MPs get subsidised food (which I don’t agree with either), doesn’t make it acceptable for Joe Bloggs to take cash in hand and then dodge child maintenance leaving his kids dependent on benefits.

If they are solely a gardener and not a takeaway owner, I would have np 😀

This is a very specific example, so I’m wondering if you or someone you love has been stung by something like this.

My nail lady prefers cash but she is married with 2 kids so no child maintenance dodging. Maybe we can both be right?

I've got clients very close to the threshold who do just that. It's why a lot of small businesses open "short" hours, or take a few weeks' off each year, etc., i.e. so that they avoid the VAT trap without breaking the law.

One client is a guest house who simply closed the top floor to reduce the number of letting rooms from 9 down to 6 to stay under the threshold. It means overheads are less, i.e. less utilites, fewer staff hours for cleaning, smaller laundry bills, etc. We crunched the numbers and he's better off doing that that breaching the threshold, incurring additional costs and losing the VAT on ALL his turnover, not just the excess over the threshold.

Another is a small bakery/pie/sandwich shop. By only opening 3 days per week they can stay under the VAT threshold legally. Again, it means smaller utility bills, lower staff wages bills, and less wastage. Again, we did the number crunching and it makes perfect sense as again, they'd lose the VAT on ALL turnover not just the excess.

A final example is a fish and chip shop who close down for two months per year to "break" the 12 month rolling turnover threshold for VAT.

All three "could" break the law and not declare cash takings, but have chosen to find other ways to avoid VAT registration.

If tradesmen want to break the law, then fair enough, but let's not pretend otherwise - it's illegal and if they're happy to break the tax laws, I'd put money on them not being too bothered about other laws either! I wouldn't want such people anywhere near my house nor car.

She's still illegally evading tax.

She is, I just don’t care 😂

If they're selling their own used clothes on Vinted, they don't need to register for tax nor submit tax returns. It's only if they purposely buy clothes to sell that they become a business and have to submit tax returns and pay tax on their profits.

It is MADNESS that the government gives such big incentives to people not to work.

Wow. I'm shocked. Thanks.

I'm shocked at this , as a small number of our customers pay by cheque. You don't even have to physically pay it in anymore. Yiu literally scan it from your phone and it goes straight into your bank account!

Do you think the govt would raise tax rates if more people fiddled it?

Or you think the govt just doesn’t care about the tax take when it is considering tax rates? They are unconnected?

Tradesmen, always bank transfer.

When I left school, if you weren't very clever you became a motor mechanic or got yourself a bag of tools to make and fix things and got paid an average wage.
Now, for reasons I can't fathom, they are on the same hourly rates as consultant surgeons!!

Depends on the bank. There are still business banks that don't provide for scanning cheques.

You're mis-comparing employment against self employment. Medical consultants may be on a hundred pounds per hour, but that's a wage - the private/self employed consultants will be charging a lot more. Likewise, self employed plumbers may charge £100 per hour, but employed ones will be getting wages of £25 per hour. You can't compare apples against pears. Self employment always costs more as there's no employer to provide the tools, equipment, paid time off for holidays/sickness, training, insurance, transport, etc etc.

This is a bit of a fallacy. It will cost your hairdresser in fees to deposit the cash, and will take time out of their day to go to the bank / post office to deposit it. When you add it all up, there is no coat saving.

I use bank transfers for my business. Monzo creates a QR code, I type in the amount, they scan the QR code and confirm the payment.

It takes as much time as putting a card into a machine and inputting your pin, though more time than contactless.

Thst qr payment is commonplace in Asia. Is it only monzo that do it? Its not something ive known all thw big banks to offer

She may be spending the cash rather than using the atm to pull it out of a bank account. No law that says has to be paid into the bank . Supermarkets, petrol stations restuarants etc all accept cash you know

Subsidised restaurants for employees are pretty widespread, no? And the cost of things like that is an absolute drop in the ocean in the context on public spending. I'm perfectly happy for members of parliament to have good working conditions. We want to persuade capable (and not independently wealthy) people to do it.

Sure, I'm not going to agree with every spending decision that this or any other government makes. But I think the idea that all governments are out to make as much money as possible out of the tax payer to spend on enriching themselves or on their own very narrow interests is very wide of the mark.

(but stamp duty is a highly dysfunctional tax that should be replaced by a wealth tax and/or increase inheritance tax, and nursing degrees should be better funded)

Yes, and probably a small percentage of customers generally use retail-store bathrooms too - but that's not a reason to discontinue them if you already have them.