Do you do jobs for cash, and then not declare it with the taxman? (voters in the poll are private!!!)

[Dan]

Do you do jobs for cash, and then not declare it with the taxman? (voters in the poll are private!!!)

Just wondering, as it's 2019, whether there are still guys doing jobs for cash.

As a web business, all my business is paid by BACS in full up front before anything goes ahead. Or Google, who pays me 2 months after I've earned it. On a rolling basis. So it is monthly kinda thing. So there's no dodging tax for me with it. And it has caught me out in the past. Ended up with a bill too big and went bump. Folded that company a while ago.

Wondering if this day in age, when so many invoicing systems are setup direct with accounts systems, that can be accessed by various departments of governments. Whether it's a case of never giving a price in writing via a system, and taking cash, or just all honest days work and paying tax all the way.

Now you don't need to reply to the thread. Just vote. And nobody will ever see who voted.

I'm just curious.

I'll do this on all my forums and see what the % is each year near Xmas. Perhaps check annually what's changing.

(Note that if anybody from the tax office ever asked for the data, we don't record who visits a thread, or who has voted. It just adds a digit to a database like an excel file, and doesn't have a name column in it. So they'd just get lots of 1's in lots of boxes and nothing else)

 

[Dan]

I fully understand how it works. My payments from Google for 13 years have been from America, Ireland and the UK.

What I'm saying is the buyer buys it here. They have to have a company here paying the tax on the goods. And not allowed them to charge a fee from islands for 'branding charge' from an arm that doesn't sell the product to the customer.

Those

 

[PEG]

Cash is still king...more is better than less,especially if it's in your pocket

I have tried rolling around,naked,on a bed strewn with BACS receipts......it's not the same...

 

[telectrix]

cash jobs might avoid paying a bit of tax, but then it makes up for the receipts you forget to enter and the nasty printed fuel receipts that have completely faded so you don't know what for and for how much, thus being unable to claim for.

 

[Dustydazzler]

We used to holiday every year in Greece when we were teenagers , and I remember back then most shops , restaurants , bars would only accept cash. No cards allowed.
I wonder why...It was something quite nice and simplicity about it,
In fact if your bill came to say 5400 drachmas they would you just round it down to a nice crisp 5000

 

[Zerax]

Absolutely agree money( our money ) is waisted by government, but I feel it is a poor argument to justify not paying your due taxes.

Governments from all sides will always waste money on weird schemes and mismanaging. It’s a fact and will never change.

The problem is they don’t believe it is wasted because they are spending it on what we the people want. Not the majority of people, but the loud minority.

I know my argument will be unpopular as no one likes giving money to the taxman, but it is needed even if some of it is wasted due to what we the people want.

Pete... I have never suggested that anyone should not pay their due taxes... that's called "tax evasion" and is illegal.
Government do not believe money is wasted for two reasons; i) That's the way it's always been ii) It's very easy to measure money... We often hear that "We've increased spending on education by 10%", but never hear that 1,000 more school leavers can read and write properly.

But probably the craziest way ever to give away our hard earned money is the law that says we must spend 0.7% of our GNI on Overseas Development (that's about 14 BILLION a year) ... It has nothing to do with actually benefitting or helping anyone !! As a consequence, vast amounts of this money never ever reach the people that need it.

 

[FatAlan]

Look at all the cash only takeaways, car washes and nail bars. No receipts issued. Great money laundering mechanisms me thinks. Always wondered why HMRC never seem to pay them much interest. Plod spent the last few years waving the flag about modern slavery and in my view one of the easiest ways to crack down on the offending businesses is to hit them financially. But no they insist on raiding them and wonder why everyone runs away, even the victims!

 

[GBDamo]

Absolutely no need to do cash jobs. If you know what your doing on you tax return.

There are so many legal ways that you can use to bring your tax bill down that there is no point in risking breaking the law.

As an extra it is morally and legally wrong to do this.

The country as a whole needs taxation to run services.

All you cash in hand job peeps think about the next time you complain about hospital waiting lists or it takes 2 days for a police officer to arrive.

If only it were so simple.

Your tax £ will be swallowed in an orgy of public sector largesse, foreign aid, failed IT systems, Toffs trains sets, diversity outreach officers, trans toilets and literally millions more schemes and scams to funnel tax into the grubby hands of the of a select few.

It is every mans duty to pay as little tax as morally acceptable to him.

I don't do cash in hand though cos I'm a hypocritical -----.

 

[Deleted account]

If only it were so simple.

Your tax £ will be swallowed in an orgy of public sector largesse, foreign aid, failed IT systems, Toffs trains sets, diversity outreach officers, trans toilets and literally millions more schemes and scams to funnel tax into the grubby hands of the of a select few.

It is every mans duty to pay as little tax as morally acceptable to him.

I don't do cash in hand though cos I'm a hypocritical -----.

I don’t know whether to agree or disagree ,like or ,dislike.

I like you don’t do cash in hand, but not sure on the little tax as morally acceptable.

If you’d said legally and morally you have an agree or like.

Just a quick add ( political correctness) “every man and woman’s duty”.

(Even more political correctness) “man woman or other”

Sorry went off topic.

I’ve decided to plump for wow!

 

[JK-Electrical]

Yeah... but this is Greece... it's a different way of life. I heard that someone had a safe/secure box/whatever underneath his swimming pool ! He worked out it was about the last place anyone would look !

Is this what accountants refer to as liquid assets?

Should this tax-evasion method ever be discovered by the Greek tax authorities, I'm sure they'll pool their resources, dive in to investigate, and surface with a watertight case.

 

[MartinN]

If you watch Watchdog on the BBC on a regular basis you always see people being ripped off on a regular basis. What was it last week, victims being charged over £6K for jobs which should cost a couple of hundred quid. Looks like they can do 2 jobs a day at least probably 6 days a week. That's £72K a week or £3.5 million a year, allowing time off for hols and drinking beer. Do you recon these people with integrity pay the tax man anything? These programs will never run out of these examples. An endless supply.

I never understand why these programs don't have the police with them and arrest immediately, freeze all bank accounts, prosecute and seize all assets under proceeds of crime act. Make them homeless. Use some of their money to lock them up and fund more investigative journalism. That would make a cracking program.

Most of the focus is always focuses on the little people who charge bugger all and make little money.

I'll give an example. Many many years ago my wife engaged the services of a small cleaning company all above board, taxes paid and daughter a part time employee with payslip. The mother decided to retire and the business was wound up. The daughter decided to keep on with 6 clients, we were one. She was on benefits (3 children, 2 fathers who had both cleared off). We paid cash even though we knew she was on benefits. I had a discussion with here on declaring it to the taxman and the benefits agency and offered help in that respect regarding accounts. The reality was it would be stupid to do so. She'd be immediately frozen out of any benefits, being self employed, even though when I looked at her financials regarding the business she was making a loss, technically. She didn't have the maths ability to do her own accounts or the financial ability to pay for an accountant. The vehicle she needed to get to her jobs triggered a loss but nether the less a "benefit in kind" for day to day life. With it she could take her children out to places. Help enrich their lives. Did she need a vehicle? No. The children went to the school 50 yards away on her road and there was an Aldi at the bottom of her road. She only required a vehicle for work.

She clearly wanted to improve her lot in life and it would also show a good work ethic to her children. One day she stopped coming. We think someone dobbed her in. We never heard from her again.

What did society benefit from this. Children learning that if you are at the bottom of the heap its pointless working as you'll just get kicked back. This is a British self fulfilling disease. There is no political desire to fix this.

Now there are negatives. What you find is cash jobs from some tradesmen are so cheap it depresses what everyone else can charge. That's a major problem for tradesmen across all trades. BUT who am I to criticise when instead of buying clothes made in the UK where there'd be maternity pay, paternity pay, sick pay, bank holiday pay, 6 weeks holiday pay, state pension, free health care, fee schooling etc I can buy much cheaper from a country where they get non of that and their working week is twice as long.

Unless you get ruthless reform starting at the top. i.e. those types that appear on Watchdog type programs, cash jobs will always be a reality.

I have met many people who have a full time job and do foreigners on the side. Do they fill out self assessments every year? I suspect not.

 

[Dustydazzler]

The 'gig' economy is booming where people have a 9-4 day job but do lots of 'paid' work on the side every weekend...I will bet my lunch money nobody declares this work to the HMRC

In fairness most people I know who do 'side work' do so out of necessity to make ends meet , and if they had to pay tax on it then it just wouldn't be worth the hassle.
About 15 years ago the HMRC were going to crack down on the gig cash economy but don't think they ever bothered

 

[telectrix]

whole system is faulty. a single mother who does not work, gets benefits, and can sit on her arse all day watching sky on the 55" flat screen TV, is entitled to free nursery places for under school age kids. my ladd works all hours to try and make ends meet, but as he's working nursery place is £600/month. that's half his wages for 7 days work/week gone.

 

[JK-Electrical]

The 'gig' economy is booming where people have a 9-4 day job but do lots of 'paid' work on the side every weekend...I will bet my lunch money nobody declares this work to the HMRC

In fairness most people I know who do 'side work' do so out of necessity to make ends meet , and if they had to pay tax on it then it just wouldn't be worth the hassle.
About 15 years ago the HMRC were going to crack down on the gig cash economy but don't think they ever bothered

If HMRC were serious about cracking down on the 'gig economy', then they ought to be taking a very close look at the likes of Rated People and MyBuilder where people who have day jobs are openly advertising their electrical services on weekends and weekdays after 4:30 pm. I'm sure there'll be other trades the length and breadth of the country doing exactly the same.

Then there are those who work for themselves, but aren't registered with HMRC as being self-employed. One reason that these guys can continually undercut bona fide contractors is because they don't pay their taxes.

 

[GMES]

I cant get away with cash jobs, everything is purchase orders and Bacs payments, I've got staff, payroll, pensions, van finance etc.
Also as others have said you are so limited to what you can do with it.
True story.... a mate of mine , one man band got a few grand cash so decided to give it the wife to use for shopping , unfortunately about 6 months later got investigated, while looking through his bank account they notice that up until the cash fiddle he had spent about 200.00 a week at Tesco on the family shopping with his bank card then suddenly it stopped. The Tax man pointed out that according to his statement the entire family must not have eaten for about 5 months lol.
They are not stupid people and will always catch a con.
Finally, I may be on my own with this mentality but if you're getting a large tax bill every year which I do!!! Then you're clearly earning the money and doing things right .

 

[Dustydazzler]

I read somewhere that the likes of Google and Amazon pay less than 1p in the pound in UK tax ,This is the true crime

But poor old Dave down the local boozer who took some cash for a re-wire is more likely to get prosecuted

Strange times

 

[Deleted account]

I read somewhere that the likes of Google and Amazon pay less than 1p in the pound in UK tax ,This is the true crime

But poor old Dave down the local boozer who took some cash for a re-wire is more likely to get prosecuted

Strange times

True, but 2 wrongs don’t make a right.

Google is morally wrong but nothing illlegal.

Dave down the local boozer was wrong and illegal.

No sympathy for Dave as he is the guy who always undercuts me on rewires as he has no insurance registaration or even qualifications.
We all know Dave.

 

[telectrix]

look at it another way. say, for arguments sake, i earn £600 in a week, all cash. out of that goes £60 on diesel ( £50 tax), £70 smokes ( £60 tax), £50 beer ( £35 tax). bills and shopping £200 ( £40 tax). that's £185 tax. and y'all wonder why i balk at paying income tax .in any case, now I'm semi-retired, i don't earn enough to break the threshold.

 

[Dustydazzler]

Everyone should just put £12,000 ‘through the books’ and the rest non declared cash...

 

[Zerax]

It's worth noting too that... The tax you pay under Sched E (Employed) is significantly higher than under Sched D (Self Employed)... so all you self employed guys should think yourselves VERY lucky. That may not continue indefinitely...

 

[Deleted account]

The percentages are 56% do on occasion take cash in hand as I type this.

I have to admit I am pleasantly surprised by that, I thought it would be 80-90%.

I bet the plumbers forum has a 90-95%.

It would be interesting to see the final result.

 

[Dustydazzler]

90-95 , more like 100

 

[telectrix]

when you supply tea and biscuits to your cps assessor, does he declare it to hmrc? and do you claim it as a legitimate business bribe expense?

 

[GMES]

when you supply tea and biscuits to your cps assessor, does he declare it to hmrc? and do you claim it as a legitimate business bribe expense?

Reminds me of a former accountant I had, he worked from his home and on introduction he said it was his job to keep me on the straight and narrow, after the meeting he asked for a price to wire his summer house , I gave him a price + vat and yes you guessed it, he then asked how much for cash. ?

 

[ColinACJL]

Do you do jobs for cash, and then not declare it with the taxman? (voters in the poll are private!!!)

Just wondering, as it's 2019, whether there are still guys doing jobs for cash.

As a web business, all my business is paid by BACS in full up front before anything goes ahead. Or Google, who pays me 2 months after I've earned it. On a rolling basis. So it is monthly kinda thing. So there's no dodging tax for me with it. And it has caught me out in the past. Ended up with a bill too big and went bump. Folded that company a while ago.

Wondering if this day in age, when so many invoicing systems are setup direct with accounts systems, that can be accessed by various departments of governments. Whether it's a case of never giving a price in writing via a system, and taking cash, or just all honest days work and paying tax all the way.

Now you don't need to reply to the thread. Just vote. And nobody will ever see who voted.

I'm just curious.

I'll do this on all my forums and see what the % is each year near Xmas. Perhaps check annually what's changing.

(Note that if anybody from the tax office ever asked for the data, we don't record who visits a thread, or who has voted. It just adds a digit to a database like an excel file, and doesn't have a name column in it. So they'd just get lots of 1's in lots of boxes and nothing else)

I am a retired design engineer, mainly circuit diagrams for products. I sort out my relatives and neighbours electrical problems without payment.

 

[pirate]

I'm with Tel on this. Using the same analogy, I earned £100 today, less tax. I put some diesel in my car, buy some cigs and a bottle of gin (modern pirates don't drink rum!), so nothing left from my earnings.
I have done this type of calculation many, many times, both when I was a smoker, and after I quit.
The reality is that many people have a tax rate of over 80%...at my peak (!) it was 88% for my earnings and lifestyle...so 88p in every £ went to the tax man. Clearly, no incentive to earn more, if you work extra hard, ruin your work/lifestyle balance to the detriment of your family and your health.
Sadly, if you live in UK (and it's worse in Scotland, btw) you just have to accept this state of affairs.
Just start with your own income tax rate, then add 20% for VAT on everything you buy from already taxed money, then add NI and fuel tax and alcohol tax and insurance premium tax and soon you will be looking at a high actual rate.
I have written here before about the cash/no VAT scam, so I won't bore you with it again. It's usually a scam though, and it only favours the tradesperson.
Wee story to gladden your heart:
Last week a gas engineer called to service the boiler in my daughter's flat..well, actually to give her a Safety Certificate for her tenants. Job done, but he had to arrange to come back 2 days later for other work. He emailed me his invoice, which was £45 + £9 VAT = £54. I met him 2 days later and as I had cash on me I gave him £55 to settle his invoice, just as he was leaving. He didn't check the money, and I wasn't going to ask him for the £1 change! A minute later he rang the doorbell, handed me back a tenner, ie my extra £1 and the £9 VAT...he didn't need to do that, but you can see where this is going...

 

[Markyd]

Of course i pay tax...so that all the scroungers can laugh at me at 6 oclock in the morning when im leaving for work

 

[Dustydazzler]

Of course i pay tax...so that all the scroungers can laugh at me at 6 oclock in the morning when im leaving for work

They won’t be up then , most wont be up much before midday...

 

[Andrew Hunter]

Try this for size, I had a freind (of sorts) who's wife was a "TAXMAN" who only ever pays in cash. He also has a buissness that is predominantly cash, done work at both their house and he's buissness for many years. where do you think all the helfull dodging information came from!

 

[EalingBadger]

when you supply tea and biscuits to your cps assessor, does he declare it to hmrc? and do you claim it as a legitimate business bribe expense?

The VAT people are banned from taking even so much as a cup of tea from you when they come visiting for one of their nice and friendly inspections.

It would seem that HMRC is worried that their inspectors heads will be turned and that they might then "overlook" the postage stamps that you "accidentally" claimed VAT back on last year.

 

[happysteve]

I do quite a few small jobs, mostly domestic. I accept cash on the day, cheque on the day, or (preferably) I invoice after the job by email, and accept direct bank transfer.

Every job, whatever payment, goes through the books.

I'm not VAT registered, sole trader, so accounts (tax return) is relatively simple.

Every job is in my Google calendar. Also Google tracks (roughly) where I go if I don't use satnav, and exactly where I go if I do. There's a digital footprint everywhere I go. If it's for a quote, it's down as such in the calendar. It all matches the mileage I record in the notebook in the van (those little IET Regs notebooks are great for that!)

I keep a manual note of cash/cheque jobs in my notebook, referenced to jobs, and cross-referenced to when I pay them in to the bank.

I do a receipt (cash or cheque) or invoice (bank transfer) for every job, even if it's just a tenner; I always offer a receipt, and even if the customer isn't bothered about one, I do one anyway for my records.

It's a pain paying in the cash/cheques to the bank.

But I sleep very easy at night.

I wouldn't want the option of paying by cash (or cheque) to go away, because some of my customers are in their '80s and '90s, and they don't cope well with anything electronic. I haven't "invested" in a card reader, as I dislike the idea of someone (who isn't HMRC) taking a cut. I dislike the idea that if you take cash for a job, you're automatically assumed to be not declaring it. It's easy: just play it straight.