account I can pay cash into

[TheSeagullsSquawk]

My husband works as a handyman and gets paid mainly cash. He isn't making enough to trouble tax man, approx £200 a week, but we will register with HMRC so he can pay self-employed NICs.

Our issue is that like everyone else we have gone largely digital on spending. I know we could use cash for supermarket shopping/ petrol, but we forget - so easiest to pay into account so we can use like the rest of our money. However there is a limit on how much we can pay in annually to our bank account due to anti- money laundering measures - and we hit that in a couple of months.

Does anyone know of a bank who would be willing to accept deposits if we can show where money has come from. Which I think we can... Or have any other bright ideas.

Thanks

That's odd, I have virgin, Lloyd's and HSBC and have put more than that in on a monthly basis for years.

Have you spoken with them? They might want to ask some money laundering type questions.

Alternatively open more account, you can pay into most at the post office.

I have an account with RBS and it’s perfectly simple to pay cash in. I’ve never been asked the origins of my cash.

Is it a business account you are trying to pay into @TheSeagullsSquawk ?
What sort of account won't accept a cash deposit? How much money is going through the account to make it too much?

Can he ask his clients to pay him by bank transfer? Most people will be happy to do this rather than go to the bother of getting cash out to pay him - if a good proportion pay this way, that will probably solve the problem.

He can just send them his bank details by Whatsapp or hand out slips of paper.

He needs to open a business account

Hi thanks. Interesting that most high street banks are fine with this. Our account is Monzo so fully online. I think I may have an old co-op account somewhere that's technically still live.

Limits are £300 a time £2000 a year.

And clients are elderly it's through AgeUK - they are generally much happier with cash. So difficult to ask them to switch, although if family member involved they tend to pay online.

Looked into my co-op account. Their limits are £2000 a day and £10000 a year. So that'll cover it! Thanks for letting me know it was a Monzo thing. Account is great in other ways.. although I think Starling is better for grown ups

That's the trouble with online accounts. I would try a high street bank as you can pay into lots of them through the post office if you don't have a branch nearby

Why?

It's fine to pay self employed money into a personal account.

Any high street bank will accept pretty much any amount of cash although obviously with checks if huge amounts . A couple of hundred every now and again isn't going to be a problem anywhere

A business account at Lloyds should be ok. I have clients with one there that bank more than that without issue. It does surprise me that not more of his clients don't pay by bank transfer though.

As an aside, anyone that has sales of more than £1,000 a year must be registered with HMRC as self employed and submit a tax return. By my calculations he's got income of £10,400 and I would assume this is after his materials. He may be under the threshold for tax and NI but he still needs to submit one. I'm hoping I've read your original post wrong, but just in case.

Thanks Witchdancer... I think he just needs to register with HMRC sometime in first year and he started in May. So hopefully fine - as he'll have a few weeks off as well he may not even hit 10 grand. I have to complete self assessment annually so have some familiarity with it.

You can pay cash into monzo via pay point or post office

@MymateDave there are cash deposit limits for Monzo

-You can pay £5-300 per transaction into your Personal, Joint or Business account.
-You can deposit a maximum of £1000 over a 180 day period (or £500 if you have a 16/17 year old account).
-There is a £1 flat fee per transaction unless you have Monzo Plus or Premium. Monzo Plus customers get 1 free deposit per month. Monzo Premium customers get 5.

@TheSeagullsSquawk I think the Co-op limits apply to paying in through the post office. There don't seem to be limits if you paying through a branch

Deposit cash
You can pay cash into your bank account by either:

• Visiting a local bank branch
• Visiting a local Post Office® – maximum £2,000 a day, and £10,000 over any 12 month period.

@dementedpixie thank you. It's very kind of you all to find out the info I failed to Google effectively.

He needs to register within 3 months of trading. Any longer and he'll get penalties

you could take a sumup machine rather than cash or bank transfer. This way you get a physical card you can spend on.

Bear in mind that he's not obligated to pay the cash into any bank account. You can still do your Self Assessment based on your records/receipts and just keep the cash in a box at home and spend in cash. Obviously not advisable for huge amounts but you could potentially be spending £200 a week on the weekly food shop anyway so wouldn't be hoarding a lot of cash.

Another alternative if you don't want a new account but need to spend on a card - take out a credit card that allows cash payments. Then spend on the credit card and pay it off in cash at the post office every week or month.

He needs to register within 3 months of trading. Any longer and he'll get penalties

That's not true at all.

When did HMRC change this? As far as I am aware this information is correct

I dont know about if it changed but Google says you must register by October of your second year of trading, no mention of a three month deadline

I was paid cash weekly from my hospitality job - and paid circa £350 a week (and then £300 a month tips on top of this) into my nationwide account and never had an issue!

I would look at opening up a Post Office account - the reason being that the post office is as unlikely to close down a store near to you, whereas banks are closing rapidly - so long term you have more chance of continuing to be able not pop to the post office to pay cash in than popping to a bank.

I can use the post office to pay cash into my Halifax and Santander acs with my debit card. There's a huge list of banks that the post office can deposit cash into.