Election Year or Fear!

[SithHappens]

May make them/us all ‘human’ but it’s never ‘irrelevant’ when we can’t live up to the expectations/standards we advocate.

I think I pretty much admitted by saying I enable it.

Tough one isn't it, what do you do? refuse to pay cash knowing what is going on?

I actually do feel more comfortable when someone comes to do work and invoices me and I pay by card or bank transfer. I'd never ask for a discount for cash but I dunno, if I'm quoted 1000 by a decorator etc for a job, or 800 if I pay cash what do you do?

I'd bet the vast majority of people would pay cash.

More often than not cash is asked for with no offer of a discount, what do we do then? Refuse and find someone who will invoice me?

The few hundred quid I've saved in my lifetime is nothing compared with what people I know avoid on a regular basis.

But you are right, if we all refused and demanded to pay in full and by bank transfer etc it would solve the problem.

I do think it's ok to criticise those who actively seek out methods to avoid paying tax even if the consequence of them doing so saves me a few quid every few years or so.

To be honest I reckon it must be 6 or 7 years since I got a discount for cash for facia replacement.

My mate has thousands sitting around his house because he takes cash most weeks. He can't bank it because there becomes a paper trail.

He hardly pays any tax, what with taking cash in hand and then putting personal non work related items against his tax return.

I hate using cash, even more so since covid. It's a pain when someone demands cash for a job, means I've got to go and get it. Bloody nuisance.

[ramAnag]

I think I pretty much admitted by saying I enable it.

Tough one isn't it, what do you do? refuse to pay cash knowing what is going on?

I actually do feel more comfortable when someone comes to do work and invoices me and I pay by card or bank transfer. I'd never ask for a discount for cash but I dunno, if I'm quoted 1000 by a decorator etc for a job, or 800 if I pay cash what do you do?

I'd bet the vast majority of people would pay cash.

More often than not cash is asked for with no offer of a discount, what do we do then? Refuse and find someone who will invoice me?

The few hundred quid I've saved in my lifetime is nothing compared with what people I know avoid on a regular basis.

But you are right, if we all refused and demanded to pay in full and by bank transfer etc it would solve the problem.

I do think it's ok to criticise those who actively seek out methods to avoid paying tax even if the consequence of them doing so saves me a few quid every few years or so.

To be honest I reckon it must be 6 or 7 years since I got a discount for cash for facia replacement.

My mate has thousands sitting around his house because he takes cash most weeks. He can't bank it because there becomes a paper trail.

He hardly pays any tax, what with taking cash in hand and then putting personal non work related items against his tax return.

I hate using cash, even more so since covid. It's a pain when someone demands cash for a job, means I've got to go and get it. Bloody nuisance.

Not saying I’m any better, Sith. Off to Spain for a month tomorrow, carrying a load of cash because that’s what the Spanish owners, who we now know well, of our main destination in the south expect. Many of the Andalusians have scant respect for the law makers in Madrid and stick to a ‘back pocket’ economy when the opportunity arises.

This ‘mate’ of yours with the ‘thousands sitting around his house…’ . You don’t have his address do you?

[swaledale]

Not saying I’m any better, Sith. Off to Spain for a month tomorrow, carrying a load of cash because that’s what the Spanish owners, who we now know well, of our main destination in the south expect. Many of the Andalusians have scant respect for the law makers in Madrid and stick to a ‘back pocket’ economy when the opportunity arises.

This ‘mate’ of yours with the ‘thousands sitting around his house…’ . You don’t have his address do you?

The point of course is that much as people tend to denigrate those who "cheat" the benefit system or whatever, there is an equal amount of "cheating" or perhaps "getting by" practised by the more comfortably off and indeed those who are very wealthy. Yet its those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale who get the the most flak!

That infamous Cameron quote about the hard workers who may be upset by their neighbours lying in on a morning because they weren't working. Being brought up on a Council estate there were plenty of those and other scams being practised, Guinness labels as car tax stickers being one I recall. Funnily enough, it wasn't a life style I ever contemplated, nor did I ever feel envious or pissed off that others in my peer group who mucked around at school or led a "life on the dole". I wanted something better in life than what they had and was happy to work for it.