Had a couple of quotes for cutting down a big tree in the garden, both about a grand. Both of them asked if I'll be paying cash, and gave a lower price for that option.
I found this really odd, and even more so as I was wondering what sort of person routinely answers yes to this. The country is in a shit shape, especially things which depend on tax income, like schools, bin collections, hospitals, police etc etc
What is it with some people that they think " **** that, I'll not pay my taxes, I'll just leach off everyone else"
Is that a common mentality? How do people justify that....
Then I thought about Google and Amazon and their taxes, and Tesco and its blatant planning regs contraventions and all those huge companies paying minimum wage in the knowledge that state will pick up the slack in tax credits etc.
And big companies offshoring stuff and splitting profits into brand use and other sorts of toss tax avoidance.
If these huge companies are getting away with it ( legally), is it fair of me to diss the smaller traders for breaking the law to try to save a bob?
Do you pay cash for stuff to avoid VAT?
Do you expect others to pay their tax to make up *your* shortfall?
Or do you just think that everyone is playing the shit system so fair enough if nobody pays any tax at all.... WGAS..
There are other fees that may be incurred through bank transfer payments, IIRC. That may be why they would prefer cash. But they may also be on the fiddle.
I found this really odd
Really?
Personally I don't care. The whole game's rigged so wtf. Cost of living etc et blah blah...
Out of interest what was the discount for cash?
Then I thought about Google and Amazon and their taxes, and Tesco and its blatant planning regs contraventions and all those huge companies paying minimum wage in the knowledge that state will pick up the slack in tax credits etc.
And big companies offshoring stuff and splitting profits into brand use and other sorts of toss tax avoidance.
Not just large companies. People are seeing government ministers offshoring too and pretty much deciding that they're less interested in the greater good than individual needs of their own families and themselves.
You reap what you sow, and its been led from the top.
Hard round my way to find a turkish barber or kebab shop taking cards.
Last time I mentioned this it appears I'm racist.
They don't want to put it though the books for blindingly obvious reasons. If that gives you a big discount, why not?
Depends if I want a warranty / insurance cover.
A bit of garden brickwork over a weekend then sure cash. Knocking through a wall and a RSJ then thought the books please.
they don’t want to put it though the books for obvious reasons.
Mislaid their pen?
What a sheltered life you live OP 🙂
Mislaid their pen?
Indeed. 🙂
Out of interest what was the discount for cash?
One of them was 16.6'% so exactly the VAT, the other was a hundred quid off (11%), which presumably is intended to give me a bit of a discount and him a bit of danger money.
Dyna-ti quite true.
If that gives you a big discount, why not?
Well, lots of reasons, as per OP. Digging a bit deeper, is your standpoint based on the expectation that others will pay your share, a realisation that the system's ****ed anyway, or just a simple " I'm alright Jack PoV"?
They're simply acting as per Adam Smith's invisible hand (with cash in).
the first is not charging you VAT, but he’ll still earn more as he’s not declaring the income either… this is “sort of ok”*. The 2nd is charging you some of the VAT but he’s obviously not paying it OR declaring the income, so is massively taking the piss & mugging both you & HMRC off. Probably a cowboy, as a lot of “tree surgeons” are!One of them was 16.6’% so exactly the VAT, the other was a hundred quid off (11%), which presumably is intended to give me a bit of a discount and him a bit of danger money.
some mug has to stump up for the Gov’s mates’ bogus PPE contracts or redecorating Boris’ new flat, might as well be you* 😂Well, lots of reasons, as per OP
(*Devil’s advocate, of course.)
Tax dodging isn't just for the rich.
Did they have this T shirt on
I find mentioning that I work for HMRC solves this problem quite quickly.
EDIT: beaten by seconds
I'd have asked if there was a discount for cash before they offered.
To be honest, I've no idea why they would want cash. The new plastic stuff is horrible. It doesn't fold for a start so you can't make a fat wedge with a fold every hundred in a used car/market trader stylee. It doesn't stay rolled up in a tube so you cant' erm... And also my local has stopped accepting cash full stop so it's essentially worthless.
The new plastic stuff is horrible.
Useful if you slash a sidewall of your tyre
Honestly, we're getting screwed over left right and centre by every big corp and our own government so who gives a shit.
And also my local has stopped accepting cash full stop so it’s essentially worthless.
send it on to me and I'll repurpose it, if its of no use to you
Hard round my way to find a turkish barber or kebab shop taking cards.
Last time I mentioned this it appears I’m racist
None of the Chinese round my way take cards. Kebab place does though.
We are moving into a very stressed economy, particularly for self employed, small business etc.
You will see more of this going gorward not less.
Hang on a grand to take down a tree? Are they removing the timber, chipping etc? Thats £500 quid round here.. two blokes and a chipper
Tell them to do it for £500 or you'll report them to HMRC for attempted tax fraud. 😁
Is it really a grand to cut down a tree? I had two conifers removed from outside my old house, one was as tall as the house and one slightly shorter, I think it cost me about 80 quid.
It doesn’t stay rolled up in a tube so you cant’ erm…
Meaning it goes back into your wallet more easily after you've erm...
some mug has to stump up
Isn't that what he's paying them for?
If they're not putting it through Vat they're not paying tax either so ask for another 15% off.
Hang on a grand to take down a tree? Are they removing the timber, chipping etc? Thats £500 quid round here.. two blokes and a chipper
**** me . Wonder why the op had a boy bother to come round and quote.
Should have just fired on here with a rather prosaic description of "big tree" and you lot would have bid down for the work....
Hang on a grand to take down a tree? Are they removing the timber, chipping etc? Thats £500 quid round here.. two blokes and a chipper
It really depends on the tree and the immediate environment...
My mates a qualified tree surgeon and you wouldn't belive the amount of regulations involved.
They have to survey any job to make sure it's all legal, no protection orders, not going to effect bats or birds, or whatever, so theres a cost there.
Especially if its near a pubilc road or path, you've got to get council permits and block off part of the road or pavement.... you need all the insurance cover..
Then like you say there's waste removal, so a chipper and removal of the chippings... it's not a small undertaking to do it all by the book, if it's a large tree.
Think I'm with the OP really. It's difficult to rage about Amazon etc dodging tax when I'll immediately do the same given the chance. It's even worse now that it's so blatant from our 'leaders'. But it's like lots of things - expecting the rest of the world to match your particular set of values is a losing game.
Tell them to do it for £500 or you’ll report them to HMRC for attempted tax fraud.
Hmmm. Tell 2 men who own a selection of axes, chainsaws and an evidence removing chipper you'll report them to the taxman, which could have them ending up in court or prison.
0/10 for good sense.
If these huge companies are getting away with it ( legally), is it fair of me to diss the smaller traders for breaking the law to try to save a bob?
Yes. You have to take the high ground, everyone does, otherwise the whole system collapses. I don't have the opportunity to be paid in cash, nor do many people, so it's hardly the last word in fairness.
I don't like cash in hand, I've never been comfortable with it.
I know one couple who the plastering husband puts 50% in cash / personal account out the way of taxman - buys great holiday every year and his wife a nice car every few years. And live in council house (natch). And first to complain about wealthy people.
Don't hate the player, hate the game... 😀
Plus theres a bit of a difference between Amazon not paying tax whilst making billions in profit and paying thier staff low wages, and Jonny the carpenter with his apprentice saving a hunderd quid here and there.
Or maybe not, in terms of pure logic, but the game is rigged against the normal working person, look at rees mogg, he quickly offshored his dubious company to ROI, whilst simultaiously crowing on about the benefits of brexit.
exactly, it’s vital that the little guy at the bottom of the pile follows the rules slavishly, those at the top rely on it & wouldn’t be able to live the lives they do of money/power/influence otherwise. Oh, whoops, thought this was the religion thread 😂 as you were 😀Yes. You have to take the high ground
Yes. You have to take the high ground, everyone does, otherwise the whole system collapses. I don’t have the opportunity to be paid in cash, nor do many people, so it’s hardly the last word in fairness.
The system is already about 2/3rds of the way through a collapse. If every tree surgeon in the country stopped paying their VAT and Tax it'd make 3/8ths of eff all difference compared to the billions that Amazon/Starbucks/Apple etc don't pay and the billions that have been siphoned off by friends of the Tory party and their failed/over-running projects...
Not to mention the last 10+ years of austerity.
I've paid cash.
I've been paid in cash.
And sometimes I've even bartered and not declared it as income! 🙂
There's lot's of ways to avoid tax, being paid in cash is a simple one for those without good accountants.
And I do hope you don't use hand car washes OP as you're supporting a lot more dodgy stuff than tax evasion.
The system is already about 2/3rds of the way through a collapse. If every tree surgeon in the country stopped paying their VAT and Tax it’d make 3/8ths of eff all difference compared to the billions that Amazon/Starbucks/Apple etc don’t pay and the billions that have been siphoned off by friends of the Tory party and their failed/over-running projects…
Not to mention the last 10+ years of austerity.
That is a good way of putting it.
TBF a lot of tree-work/gardeners and firewood suppliers often deal in cash. They rarely carry a card machine and operate in the countryside buying and selling 'on sight'. It's not just to avoid tax, which is not a huge amount anyhow...£1k sounds a bit steep though
Nothing wrong with paying cash, it's up to the tradesperson to then do their tax returns and so on, if they don't then it's up to them, i've known a load who do cash in hand jobs and a couple who have been investigated due to folk grassing on them, that's the usual way folk get caught, more envy from neighbours or 'friends' rather than tax investigators!
And the IR aren't stupid - if they see loads of invoices coming in and VAT being reclaimed but these figures don't tally with what the turnover should be in relation to those purchases and income drawn they will investigate. Anyone who just deals in cash will found out eventually (as my uncle did back in the 80s and got fined 10k).
There's always been a cash economy and I'd imagine it's a lot less now than it ever was.
And as for take-aways - the card machine always seems to be broken in the ones we use. Amazing that! 🙂
Last time I looked cash is legal tender
What they do with your money is up to them. What's to say they will pay tax on a bank transfer- it's an honesty based system.
Do you ask to see the tax return of everyone you buy off?
Just pay the man cash and tell him he
I never ask to be paid cash. Always tell the customer to pay whatever way is convenient for them. Have been asked "discount for cash?" generally by people who can easily afford to pay the full amount. Works both ways.
And I do hope you don’t use hand car washes OP as you’re supporting a lot more dodgy stuff than tax evasion.
People get their cars washed?!
Hang on a grand to take down a tree? Are they removing the timber, chipping etc? Thats £500 quid round here.. two blokes and a chipper
Nope. They're just removing the brushwood* and slicing the trunk into 18" rounds for me to split later on.
* and TBH there's sod all brush as I already paid them 500 quid a few years back in a vain attempt to make it safe and last a few more years.
Balls, just realised this is not my first post about tree costs...
Paid someone £500 ( or was it 600) last year to grind a stump.
Then £500 the year before to remove a lonesome pine.
Then £360 for another beech.
Then another £400 for another beech.
I think the moral of this story is not to be a tree in my garden. It's a perilous existence.
Bloody hell £3,160. Could buy a bike for that.....
Bloody hell £3,160. Could buy a bike for that…..
Some people could, I doubt you're one of them 🙂
Anyway, if you need to offload any of that wood...
Paid someone £500 ( or was it 600) last year to grind a stump
Was probably 600 but 500 for cash!
And I do hope you don’t use hand car washes OP as you’re supporting a lot more dodgy stuff than tax evasion.
You know that Breaking Bad wasn't a documentary, right? (-:
Last time I looked cash is legal tender
Look again for the meaning of "legal tender." It has a narrow legal definition relating to the paying off of debts to creditors, not tree surgeons.
Incidentally,
WTF do tradespeople do with (presumably multiple) several hundred pound cash payments? Do they rock up to the bank with a duffle bag periodically?
They themselves pay for as much as possible in cash, like all their food shopping/petrol/cars for example. Untraceable and therefore untaxable income innit.
Do they rock up to the bank with a duffle bag periodically?
// Cougar goes away to find his sawnoff....
I’d have asked if there was a discount for cash before they offered.
I mean mainly this, unless it's for global megacorp, this is the norm no?
If everyone stopped using Amazon and paid their local tree surgeon £1000 cash to chop down a tree that would show em wouldn’t it
I’ve never had a stranger offer me a discount for cash.
I’ve never had a stranger offer me illegal drugs.
A stranger in a pub once told me I looked like an undercover cop. This could be related to the first two facts.
Nope. They’re just removing the brushwood* and slicing the trunk into 18″ rounds for me to split later on.
* and TBH there’s sod all brush as I already paid them 500 quid a few years back in a vain attempt to make it safe and last a few more years.
Balls, just realised this is not my first post about tree costs…
Paid someone £500 ( or was it 600) last year to grind a stump.
Then £500 the year before to remove a lonesome pine.
Then £360 for another beech.
Then another £400 for another beech.
I think the moral of this story is not to be a tree in my garden. It’s a perilous existence.
Bloody hell £3,160. Could buy a bike for that…..
It sounds like you have a massive garden, one tree in my garden would take up the entire place!
Is it worth looking into hiring a groundkeeper, might be cheaper in the long run for your estate 😂
There are three things I pay cash for - kebabs from the trailer at the entrance to the business park just off the A350, fish and chips from the Chinese owned chippy a,ing the roa, and my tattoos, the artists rent a space in a studio in the marketplace in town. Once upon a time I used to pay cash for haircuts, but I do my own now.
I did pay cash to the team who cut about four feet off the top of my garden hedges. They spent several hours cutting and chipping it all, and they’re a legit business, recommended by a friend I’ve known since he was a nipper, and who has his own business, been going for some years. I guess it’s easier to divvy the money out between them at the end of the job.
I don’t care, it’s their concern, not mine as to how they all manage their finances. Nor anyone else, apart from the government.
They probably need cash because that's all the guy with the really cheap chipper for sale will accept and they need to buy it to replace the one that got stolen.
OP, you need a forestry handcutter - they work faster, harder and smarter. We spent 2 days on a roadside job with a winch that a tree surgeon quoted 2 weeks to dismantle with traffic management. Even if they had a cash price it wouldn't have come close.
Saturday morning quick job I'm ok with a bit of cash but anything more and it's taking the piss.
They themselves pay for as much as possible in cash, like all their food shopping/petrol/cars for example. Untraceable and therefore untaxable income innit.
They pay their suppliers in cash so the circle carries on.
They pay "employees" in cash but there's no tax or NIC paid either. And possibly not even minimum wage.
Not all cash takers are on the fiddle, but a lot are. Anyone paying a fiver for a hand car wash is almost certainly supporting tax avoidance, minimum wage violations and potentially much worse.
If you earn enough to pay the tax to fund the education you got, or your kids are getting, the health care you and your family have had, the pension you will get, etc etc just ****ing pay it and be grateful you are earning enough to do so.
If a tree surgeon chops down a tree for cash does it make a sound?
As in shhh, don't tell anyone?
“ You're paying for prisons.
You're paying for war.
You're paying for lobotomies.
You're paying for law.
You're paying for their order.
You're paying for their murder.
Paying for your ticket
To watch the farce.
Knowing you've made you're contribution
To the systems ****ed solution,
To their political pollution.
No chance of revolution.
No chance of change.
You've got no range.
Don't just take it.
Don't take their shit.
Don't' play their game.
Don't take their blame.
USE YOUR OWN HEAD.
Your turn instead.“
Crass.
We've got friends who have a multi generational family all in building trades. Nicest people you could meet. But so ingrained in a cash culture as to be entirely blind to what it might look like from the outside. It can be awkward at times. Matriarch of the family (Pam Shipman from Gavin and Stacey is her doppelganger) regularly goes off on one about how seriously underfunded our amazing NHS (a full bore doorstep pot bashing supporter of our wonderful heros) is by government after government without appreciating the irony. Every aspect of running the family home is run with cash. Was incensed that the self employed covid furlough equivalent was not doing much for son number 1 and something should be sorted to help him out. Apparently the government knows that what he really earns is not what is on the SA so it wasn't fair to only offer support on declared income. Son number 2 was fine though as he'd been putting more through the books as he was putting a case together for a mortgage so at least he'd be getting back what wasted on his tax return. Daughter in law works in the back office of a building supplies company. Gets minimum wage in theory but every month meets her boss off site (always off site) for a coffee and a brown envelope that triples that.
I think they live in a world that operates like this so much I genuinely don't think it being wrong is even vaguely on their radar.
I know tradies that take cash jobs to hide the money from their family so they can spend it on boys toys etc.
One guy swapped his year old Yeti frame and forks for a brand new one and when his wife noticed the forks were now orange explained that he'd just put a new sticker kit on.
Oh the hypocracy of all this. The handwringing theoretical socialists of STW actually objecting to the corner stone of the hard working tradesman. I don't see Jim Radcliffe asking for cash. But i do see the chap making every bob he can doing it if possible. Why? Because the system that penalises you for working hard is fundamentally unfair. Plenty of people here rant on about the honest working man,fair of mind, inclusive to all, screwed by big business when thats the person who is doing what the tearful socialist objects to. Where do you see the Daily Mail? Shoved in the front window of the one man band builders van!
And I do hope you don’t use hand car washes OP as you’re supporting a lot more dodgy stuff than tax evasion.
You know that Breaking Bad wasn’t a documentary, right? (-:
Unseen report (linky) I did note the smiley, but it's really happening
WTF do tradespeople do with (presumably multiple) several hundred pound cash payments?
Pay other trades to do work for them .
Was incensed that the self employed covid furlough equivalent was not doing much for son number 1 and something should be sorted to help him out. Apparently the government knows that what he really earns is not what is on the SA so it wasn’t fair to only offer support on declared income
I know a lot of genuine self employed people got screwed over by the Covid schemes, but a couple of acquaintances who have been open that they play the system to minimise their tax bill got very upset when I pointed out that they couldn't have it both ways.
Because the system that penalises you for working hard is fundamentally unfair.
How, exactly?
As someone who runs a village shop, Ive around a £5 basket spend from customers on average.... I'd much rather have cash everytime....
I can bank onsite as ive a postoffice as part of the shop so the money goes straight into the bank account every day, I also get paid for putting the money in. I also get a commission everytime someone withdraws cash. With cards it's the other way around, I have to pay the bank (card merchant, who then inturns pays fee to the banks) for every card transaction, and I have to wait for the days takings to hit my bank account.
Cash is extremely useful part of my business that's helps with cash flow. It's also all goes through a till and is completely traceable, from invoices to bills, it's a vat registered business so the tax man can see how much I'm spending Vs buying and work out margins.
Over the last 2 yrs I've gone from a 60-80% cash buisness to a 60-80% cards. My card fees have increased by around double - a cost I have to pass on to the customer which inturn increases prices.
Cards are a useful form of payment and have a time and a place - but they are primarily a way of the banks retaining your money and making more for themselves. Chip and pin, and more recently contactless are designed primarily as money making tools for the bank and convenient for the consumer secondarily.
The banks are the ones we should be pointing fingers at not the working class.... Just imo
I paid £1500 for a tree felling, but it was a big job involving 3 men for 3 days, up a rope and taking it down slice by slice, which they left for me to struggle with! My mum paid £150 for an apple tree that had blown over, which seemed reasonable. I could have done that myself had I been able to visit, but they seemed to do a good job.
My quote was minus VAT but he explained he was careful to keep under threshold. He had more than one business doing distinct work. I assumed he was kosher but I guess there must be a point at which running multiple businesses under VAT threshold looks dodgy.
I use cash once a week to pay the £1.50 range fee at my shooting club. Proper 1980's pricing!
Something i always remember growing up, and into adulthood was the number of trades folk who worked all day, then spent the weekend in the pub and bookies until every penny was gone!
COVID did a lot to kill off cash payments, always remember before it that paying under a fiver on your card wasn't normal, now folk are paying with their card or phone for a pack of chewing gum, it's become the norm, i don't think i've had change in my pocket for ages, feel bad every time i go past someone with a charity tin, as i genuinely have no cash on me these days.
Thought that this problem got fixed with the COVID grants where they were made based on declared income.
I won't support small tradesman tax-dodging. They're the first to complain if their house gets broken into or the roads fall apart.
The handwringing theoretical socialists of STW actually objecting to the corner stone of the hard working tradesman. I don’t see Jim Radcliffe asking for cash. But i do see the chap making every bob he can doing it if possible. Why? Because the system that penalises you for working hard is fundamentally unfair. Plenty of people here rant on about the honest working man,fair of mind, inclusive to all, screwed by big business when thats the person who is doing what the tearful socialist objects to.
I'm not quite sure what your point is.
I can't see there would be too many people who find cash economy circumvention for tax evasion purposes distasteful who would not also find the tax avoidance (the legal but immoral tax avoidance kind) of big business highly objectionable too. It's fine to dislike both.
The hypocrisy comes when one group knowingly not paying their way complain about another without acknowledging their personal 'sins'. You don't get to complain about funding of the NHS or the state education system if you business is mostly run off the books and neither do you get to complain about 'benefit scroungers' claiming for fake ailments. You are just as guilty as the latter and you are not contributing to the former.
Of course we could all spiral into a pit of doom by using the adage 'well, why should I do the right thing when they are not?'.....
I find mentioning that I work for HMRC solves this problem quite quickly.
You get a bigger discount, I assume?
COVID did a lot to kill off cash payments, always remember before it that paying under a fiver on your card wasn’t normal, now folk are paying with their card or phone for a pack of chewing gum, it’s become the norm, i don’t think i’ve had change in my pocket for ages,
This 👆 - just remember that this is also having an effect of driving up the costs of goods as margins have to be reinforced as per my post above.
It’s the mindset in this country that if we don’t pay tax it’s a win. It’s also the mindset to grumble when we can’t get a GP appointment the same day, we don’t see coppers walking down the street and the rubbish in the road. The connection between the two isn’t made, you get what you pay for in life and good public services cost. Tax should be seen as a pro social, positive thing to do but isn’t. I get peoples indifference and antagonism and it pisses me off but just because the guy next to me is stealing a 75 inch mega tv doesn’t mean I should Nick a toaster!
If you think it needs to be reported, report it
Then HMRC can have a look into things.
The connection between the two isn’t made, you get what you pay for in life and good public services cost.
There isn't a connection anymore, you pay more and the Tories and their chums syphon off as much as they can. Whatever services they can't afford to run effectively on the money that is left, they sell off.
