Election Year or Fear!

[ramAnag]

That’s irrelevant to the strength of their argument, just makes them human

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

[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.

[Geoff Parkstone]

There could soon be an end to the "tax free cash payments" in that cash is used so infrequently nowadays. With the shift of retail to online and indeed several physical shops I've visited recently declining cash, it will be easier to spot the cash withdrawals by Joe Public - and harder for said Joe to explain it

[SithHappens]

There could soon be an end to the "tax free cash payments" in that cash is used so infrequently nowadays. With the shift of retail to online and indeed several physical shops I've visited recently declining cash, it will be easier to spot the cash withdrawals by Joe Public - and harder for said Joe to explain it

Big increase in places that are card only yes. When we were in London recently pretty much every bar we went in was like that.

I'm all for it.

Add to that my card reward scheme is very good, we have had quite a few free hotel stays off the back of it.

[SithHappens]

Paying cash to get a discount was certainly something my parents were very used to.

My dad still can't get his head around the fact its often cheaper to buy something like a car on finance than pay in full.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Did you achieve it?

[MadAmster]

We need to keep cash. I know of pub landlords who pay the card machine companies upwards of 6 grand a year. Then there's bank charges on top of that. If we all paid cash in the pub, that fiver would still be a fiver and not something like £4.70 for the landlord. He can buy, say, pie and chips with it and the chippy has a fiver. Chippy pays fiver to the barber for a haircut. The fiver is still a fiver. The banks and card machine companies haven't taken £0.90 in charges.

The fiver is still a fiver but the value has remained in circulation and bankers etc have earned zero. I like that. The landlord benefits to the tune of a fiver rather than £4.70 after charges. Same with the chippy. Same with the barber. Enough people pay with cash, prices might even be able to come down. Only a little, agreed. That, or price rises will occur later...

No cash would be great for banks and card machine companies. It would also, very likely, see the back of car boot sales, markets stalls, tips would end up in the pocket of restaurant owners and not in those of the staff, no giving to the homeless or buskers, no selling unwanted items for cash and HMG would soon be charging VAT on those sales, any privacy when buying anything would be gone, we'd be 100% reliant on having a power source and the internet to buy/sell anything. The tooth fairy would be out of business as well. Piggy banks would have no purpose.

[SithHappens]

If they just take card in pubs etc there is the benefit of not having to cash up, balance the books, make a trip to the bank, which is even harder these days.

All of that costs money.