AIBU to be so sick of tradespeople/ cleaners asking for cash in hand?

[Endlesspasswords]

So my cleaner charges £21/hour cash, but just said she wants more if I pay by bank transfer, because bank transfer means she can’t dodge declaring it. As if paying by transfer (i.e. traceably) is some kind of favour/ privilege I should pay extra for.

Same with some work I got a quote for- it’s the attitude that if I don’t want to pay in cash, I’m the one ‘hurting’ their bank balance or being awkward.

I’m freelance B2B myself. No sick pay, no employer pension contributions, no paid holiday, I know exactly what it’s like to carry your own tax and NI. But I still pay tax on every invoice, because that’s the deal.

I’m so sick with the fact that self-employed people in one sector get to treat tax as optional while others pay for their healthcare, schools etc.

and yes, I’m getting a new cleaner.

I do yes my husband has always been self employed. If I earned £40k gross I’d expect to be taxed.

I don't know what RTT means? I've googled it and none of the suggestions make sense.

What are the legitimate reasons for someone prefering payment in cash?

It means Read The Thread.

Some posters read the entire thread and get annoyed by people who make comments that they wouldn't have made if they had read the whole thread.

Read the thread

It’s a feature of the Mumsnet threads I guess. Someone comes along, doesn’t read any of the previous posts and chips in with a comment that’s already been debated in depth 😆

If they only work for cash I don't employ them but I give my cleaner holiday pay and sick pay

Who's got time for that?! I'm not reading 15 pages of it!

What has working for the NHS got to to with it ? - hardly to be held in esteem as a well managed and resourceful use of the taxes we all pay. Have to agree with @Meadowfinch that if tax payers saw their taxes well spent then less people would feel justified in avoiding it

You do know it’s not compulsory for you to contribute - especially when you haven’t got much time.

When tax law is so open to being fiddled and dodged by everyone and anyone I can see why people try their hand at it. Tax should be the same no matter what you earn, whether you pay PAYE or are a business then their is no incentive to try to dodge it everyone pays 10%, 20% or whatever and that's the rule! Letting wealthy people hide money offshore, offset tax by donating money to 'charity' or someone getting cash in hand it's all the same IMO.....

Whilst not excusing the attempt to circumvent the VAT registration threshold, the threshold is a turnover one not an income one. So it's certain that even if he turned over £90k by the time you knock of the cost of running a van, the materials needed and the other costs asociatied with running a business the income of the 'man and van' will be a lot less than £90k!

Well HMRC agrees with me as my friend is a lawyer there. Some is legit, but I can tell you it’s most certainly the black economy - it has a name, because it’s real. Just like money laundering, just like organised crime.

Yes and STILL should be paying VAT. It’s tax fraud and it boils my blood.

I wanted a new business bank account about a year ago. Every high street bank charged at least £8 per month (HSBC did drop that charge for their lowest level of business banking), plus additional charges if you wanted to deposit cash, charges if you went above or below a certain amount, charges for any sort of banking service frankly. There is always the option of 'challenger' organisations, but that's not suitable for everyone.

In terms of the OP, I don't assume people who ask for cash are not paying tax. I find it bizarre the sheer number of people admitting to the OP they're avoiding paying tax.

I mentioned the nhs because it’s funded through taxation, regardless whether it’s efficient or should be held in esteem

This and if there’s no evidence of payment…. You’re screwed if something has been done wrong because you can’t even prove you paid for the work

It was inevitable that a lot would be lost to fraud but the amount of money lost one way or another was crazy. Hence furlough on taxes income was one of the few moments. As it happens, looking at Sweden, we should never have locked down like we did - we should have just sheltered the vulnerable and then the country would not have been in quite such a mess as it is now.

Exactly the point of @Meadowfinch post. Tax payers are sick of their money being totally wasted or misappropriated on questionable causes. There would be less avoidance or evasion if the taxes paid were actually put to good use (to include the benefit of those that paid them) and not totally squandered.

I don't think that's true at all. If that were the case, we'd be seeing enormous altruism from the self employed. Are they statistically over represented in charitable donations?

Being frustrated about the excessive and wanton wastage of compulsory (and often punitive) tax and elective donations to a charity are two entirely different concepts

I think you mean charging VAT. Only the customer pays it :)

But then there’s little incentive to grow your business from a one man band turning over £80k to a small business employing 2 or 3 people (I gather there is both bit of an unemployment problem in the U.K as well as a shortage for tradespeople), because their pricing immediately becomes 20% more expensive than the small one man band. One would think encouraging businesses to grow would be helpful…. Perhaps some graduated VAT threshold, or a much lower one (which risks stifling any new businesses) would help. But don’t blame the customer or the tradesperson, except of course when they do try to subvert the rules for their own benefit. For every tradesperson willing to accept cash there’s a customer happy to save 20% on the cost…

I am happy to pay with cash.

I always thought cleaners charged a lot over hour because they had to pay tax etc. 21 an hour really is a pretty good rate tax free I think. She seems cheeky as well as a tax dodger

@C152

In terms of the OP, I don't assume people who ask for cash are not paying tax. I find it bizarre the sheer number of people admitting to the OP they're avoiding paying tax.

It's pretty obvious with the ones who offer a 20% reduction if you pay by cash, even moreso the ones who openly and blatantly say they'll knock off the VAT if you pay in cash. I don't think you could be any more blatant and the customer must be incredibly naive if they genuinely don't think the trader is evading taxes.

This is quite far fetched. Nobody on here is suggesting we stop children being able to pay in cash for their £1 of sweeties from the corner shop every now and again.

People are talking about paying tradespeople large sums of money in cash, or service people like cleaners only accepting cash.

There is honestly no good reason to refuse to accept a bank transfer in cash - if cash is so important to you, pop to the cashpoint and withdraw the money in cash once its been transferred in electronically. Nobody is stopping that.

The only reasons people insist on cash is to avoid tax, keep their official income level low in order to qualify for extra benefit top ups, or to avoid paying the appropriate amount of child benefit.

I dont support any of those, so will not employ someone who will only take cash. I got rid of my cleaners for this exact reason. I agree with a previous poster its a form of theft.

Be under no illusion one of the reason uk tax rates are as high as they are is because of all the people dodging paying. The money has to come from somewhere to run the infrastructure and services we all need so every one of us is paying that bit more as a result. They are stealing a little bit from every one of you to line their own dodging pockets.