No more cash-in-hand?

[Nigello]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40561807

Agree?

[Jules-and-Boo]

Cash in hand is generally not declared which is actually fraud.

In practical terms, it would mean your cleaner sending you an invoice rather than you leaving money on the side.

I think we all do/ have done it.

My friend gets less than ?9 an hour which is taxed.

The need to maximise such low rates is hardly surprising.

Perhaps the government should cast their net wider and look at how much corporation tax is lost every year from the economy through loop holes and avoidance by large companies.

Perhaps a starting point would be to ask her husband - as Mr May is an exec at an investment co, profiting from Corporation Tax avoidance - so he'd probably know

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-philip-may-amazon-starbucks-google-capital-group-philip-morris-a7133231.html

[JohnL]

Cash ... isn't that soon to be history.

[Mick Mac]

Who would not agree. There is a huge amount of lost income tax/vat revenue.

Payments can now be made by mobile phone app in a matter of minutes, lots of options, from BACS or Pingit

Once you have set up the payee, its a 30 second job to pay them again next time.

As Jules says, there are many low earners making a contribution to the tax take as employees. Self employed have had it too good for too long.

Disclaimer - There are some who will pay all their taxes of course.

[uncleglen]

Not only do people on benefits for example, do cash in hand work but there are larger concerns that will give a discount for cash payment.

[ianr]

Jules & Boo > Cash in hand is generally not declared which is actually fraud.

Fraud?

[red devil]

VAT fraud...https://www.gov.uk/report-vat-fraud

[Nigello]

With the advent of smartphones it should be very easy for everyone - even your cleaner - to be able to charge a fairer/more expensive price so as to accommodate taxes (and use another app to process the payments and NI and tax, etc).

[Mick Mac]

Nigello Wrote:

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> With the advent of smartphones it should be very

> easy for everyone - even your cleaner - to be able

> to charge a fairer/more expensive price so as to

> accommodate taxes

That's a very interesting post.

It appears to suggest that the cost of the taxes will ultimately be funded by payer for the services, rather than the person supplying the services.

I'd argue that the person supplying the services is 100% to blame for not paying tax. If that means they feel the need to charge more, than that's what they should have been doing - but cash or electronic changes nothing in terms of responsibility to pay taxes correctly. It lies with the service provider and always has.

[bawdy-nan]

yeah those low paid self-employed people with their no sick pay, holiday pay, pension rights, job security, non-equitable access to benefits, practically impossible to get mortgages they've had it far too good for way too long. Obviously, it's the self-employed rather than the corporate tax evaders who are causing the most problems. I don't know of any regular acceptable "cash in hand" jobs aside from babysitting jobs for teens.

[TheCat]

Jules-and-Boo Wrote:

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>

>

> Perhaps a starting point would be to ask her

> husband - as Mr May is an exec at an investment

> co, profiting from Corporation Tax avoidance - so

> he'd probably know

>

Before you get too unsteady on that moral high ground....That investment company will manage a whole lot of 'normal' people's pension pots...maybe even part of yours, but almost certainly at least someone you know ...which means most of us are also somehow profiting from this tax avoidance which you clearly find so abhorrent...

[Alan Medic]

red devil Wrote:

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> VAT fraud...https://www.gov.uk/report-vat-fraud

Only applies if someone is registered for VAT. Not obliged to if your business has a turnover of less than ?85k.

[Mick Mac]

The report quotes ?6bn - that's a lot of babysitting.

Relatively low earners in the employed sector pay their share of tax - Just because one is self employed doesn't mean one can defraud the government.

[Jules-and-Boo]

my high horse? really? what, having the temerity to suggest the initiative to stop the tax avoidance by 'cash-in-hand' also be applied to corporations?

yes - how very unhumble of me.

[Nigello]

The thing I take from this is that most people agree that everyone should pay tax. So, how many people will stop paying their dog-walker/cleaner/window cleaner/mobile beautician** in cash and demand a receipt?

**Not all of these kind of workers are by default tax defrauders.

[red devil]

My thoughts exactly nigello, plus all the tips people give to taxi drivers, waiters, barber, ''have one yourself barman'' etc. We all know these will rarely be declared to the taxman...

[JohnL]

red devil Wrote:

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> My thoughts exactly nigello, plus all the tips

> people give to taxi drivers, waiters, barber,

> ''have one yourself barman'' etc. We all know

> these will rarely be declared to the taxman...

'Have one yourself' isn't a tip, it's a chat up line :)

[miga]

Nigello Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The thing I take from this is that most people

> agree that everyone should pay tax. So, how many

> people will stop paying their

> dog-walker/cleaner/window cleaner/mobile

> beautician** in cash and demand a receipt?

>

> **Not all of these kind of workers are by default

> tax defrauders.

That will line up with the answer to the question of how many people fancy paying their cleaner 13-14 an hour instead of 10?

[Saffron]

Maybe when individuals feel like what they get from the government in return for taxes is fair, they will be more likely to pay them. Just a thought. xx

[Mick Mac]

Ha. Very good, optional taxes. :)

There is no responsibility on an individual paying for a service to check that tax is being paid.

Non declaration of cash or any other earnings is criminal and is a police matter.

http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/fraud-az-tax-fraud

[Nigello]

That will line up with the answer to the question of how many people fancy paying their cleaner 13-14 an hour instead of 10?

Indeed. Let's have a straw poll.

Me - No (because I don't have, nor never have had, a cleaner).

Over to you!

[dbboy]

window cleaner, gardener, hairdresser, cleaner (house), oven cleaner - what other jobs are cash in hand??

[bawdy-nan]

Mick Mac wrote:

The report quotes ?6bn - that's a lot of babysitting.

Relatively low earners in the employed sector pay their share of tax - Just because one is self employed doesn't mean one can defraud the government.

Aren't you missing the point? The article you quote Nigello doesn't mention 6.2 billion. Other news articles do and indeed the Taylor report does.

The figure comes from an HMRC report which you can read in full here. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160618143921/https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/470540/HMRC-measuring-tax-gaps-2015-1.pdf#page=11

The figure of ?6.2 billion relates to the "Hidden Economy" and is an "illustrative" estimate produced from estimated figures for 2013-14 (?4.1 billion). The estimates are, they stress, "experimental".

The Hidden Economy is described as being related to:

"Undeclared economic activity that involves what we call ?ghosts? ? whose entire income is

unknown to HMRC, and ?moonlighters? ? who are known to us in relation to part of their

income, but have other sources of income that HMRC does not know about.

According to the report: "The direct tax hidden economy estimate is ?4.1 billion in 2013-14. This consists of ghosts (?1.2 billion), moonlighters (?1.9 billion) and Pay As You Earn individuals not in Self Assessment (?1.0 billion).

So by HMRC's own reckoning approximately a quarter of the "Hidden Economy" are in fact, employees (in PAYE) who don't declare additional income through SA, and another half are "moonlighters" which HMRC describes thus:

?Moonlighters? are individuals who pay tax on their main job through PAYE, but who fail to declare earnings from

a second job or additional income from self-employment.

Just over another quarter are people who simply don't declare any income at all. The "ghosts". These people don't have the status of being "self-employed".

So, in fact. Mick Mack, according to the source document from HMRC the problem is not with the self-employed it is with the employed. It is those already within PAYE that are being referred to when that figure of ?6.2 billion is bandied about.

As you say, "Just because one is employed one can't defraud the government"

[bawdy-nan]

dbboy Wrote:

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> window cleaner, gardener, hairdresser, cleaner

> (house), oven cleaner - what other jobs are cash

> in hand??

Most cleaning firms that offer services aren't cash in hand, never been to a hairdressers where I've been asked to pay cash that hasn't gone through a till, the only time I;ve used a gardener they gave me a receipt ... (hardly ever) clean my own windows and oven. The only thing I've paid cash for, aside from tips, is babysitting and that usually to a "young person". When I used a "professional" babysitter or flexible nanny on an ad hoc basis I had to run their weekly pay through PAYE and register as an employer.

[Mick Mac]

Baldy Man.

That's a very long way to make a brief point. I don't really care if people who don't report earnings have an employment as well as the cash earnings that they don't report, it's not a vendetta against the self employed, it's a vendetta against fraudulent behaviour.

Ps - get my name right and I'll get yours right too :)