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)

 

[Deleted account]

That

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.

That could have been me writing the above. Exactly as I think and do.

 

[Zerax]

I wonder what taxi drivers do ? I don't mean uber where it's all electronic... I mean your traditional taxi that is mostly cash... do they declare it all ? who's to say if their mileage is trade or private ?...

 

[ElectroChem]

There are two kinds of electricians.

The ones who do the occasional (or not so occasional) job that HMRC doesn't need to know about, and liars.

 

[Deleted account]

There are two kinds of electricians.

The ones who do the occasional (or not so occasional) job that HMRC doesn't need to know about, and liars.

Clearly there are 3 kinds of electrician because I don’t fit either of those criteria.

 

[telectrix]

slightly off topic, but a mate of my son is a roofer, employed paye by a reputable firm. he does not have a bank, no bacs, and is the only employee who gets his wages in cash, in a pay packet on Friday afternoon. takes me back years thinking about it.

 

[Dustydazzler]

slightly off topic, but a mate of my son is a roofer, employed paye by a reputable firm. he does not have a bank, no bacs, and is the only employee who gets his wages in cash, in a pay packet on Friday afternoon. takes me back years thinking about it.

My dad when a factor electrician (employed) used to come home every Friday with a small brown envelope with his weeks wages in cash and tip it into a large dish on the work top.
This was the 1980s thou

 

[Zerax]

A mate of mine... when he started work, he had a cheque every week... As he was still living at home, he didn't really have any outgoings... so he used to save them up. Then one day he gets called into the office... they asked if he wouldn't mind taking them to the bank as it was causing a problem in the finance department. He didn't realise you had to back em !

 

[Edtwozeronine]

If you think about it anything you buy with cash (I think apart from food) has VAT on it, so you'd be getting taxed spending untaxed money anyway. You can't escape it unless you do VAT fraud, not recommended after reading an article about a guy who pretended to sell a bunch of laptops on his website and claimed the VAT back. Banged up for years!
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My dad when a factor electrician (employed) used to come home every Friday with a small brown envelope with his weeks wages in cash and tip it into a large dish on the work top.
This was the 1980s thou

That reminds me of Bread, the old TV series.

 

[GMES]

not recommended after reading an article about a guy who pretended to sell a bunch of laptops on his website and claimed the VAT back. Banged up for years!

If he sold them he would owe vat not claim it.

 

[Zerax]

If he sold them he would owe vat not claim it.

It sounds like classic "carousel fraud"... goods are imported from abroad without VAT, then sold multiple times through various companies (with Input and Output VAT) then the final company exports them reclaiming the VAT... often to the same company they were imported from initially...

 

[Edtwozeronine]

It sounds like classic "carousel fraud"... goods are imported from abroad without VAT, then sold multiple times through various companies (with Input and Output VAT) then the final company exports them reclaiming the VAT... often to the same company they were imported from initially...

Oh is that how it works, i thought businesses reclaimed VAT on things they sold, or is that only applicable to things bought for business use like a computer and printer?

 

[Zerax]

Oh is that how it works, i thought businesses reclaimed VAT on things they sold, or is that only applicable to things bought for business use like a computer and printer?

Businesses reclaim 'Input VAT' on things they've purchased, then pay to HMRC the 'Output VAT' on things they sell. Normally the value of sales is higher than the value of purchases, so it's a net payment to HMRC... but often for a company just starting, they have to purchase tools, vans etc... so they may have a net repayment of VAT from HMRC.

 

[Intoelectrics]

I Have a friend who is a tax inspector, we had this conversation years ago. He concentrated his main efforts on complete non payers and high end tax dodgers/evaders.
At that time they/he accepted that there is always going to be an "acceptable" percentage that slips through the system.

Personally I'm a bit torn between morality and "what the hell everyone else is doing it". I get upset when I see people making loads of cash by continually ripping off other people or the system with a selfish attitude. Then I think to myself who is the fool, the person working hard making a honest living or the person winging it and making a load of easy cash. Lets face it, this happens all the way up to the greedy big wigs, we see it everyday! look at Thomas Cook, the big wigs have made an absolute mint while all the honest folk pay the price.

I've yet to meet a honest self-made millionaire, hell some of these crooks even get Knighthoods for it! I know a Knighted "self made" billionaire very well, he was an associate of my fathers years back. He is the biggest crook you could ever meet and spent years tax and vat evading and committing fraud. He tried to convince my father to invest at one point early on, but my father is to honest a man to deal with the guilt. I won't mention his name but he is a well known entrepreneur.

 

[Edtwozeronine]

I Have a friend who is a tax inspector, we had this conversation years ago. He concentrated his main efforts on complete non payers and high end tax dodgers/evaders.
At that time they/he accepted that there is always going to be an "acceptable" percentage that slips through the system.

Personally I'm a bit torn between morality and "what the hell everyone else is doing it". I get upset when I see people making loads of cash by continually ripping off other people or the system with a selfish attitude. Then I think to myself who is the fool, the person working hard making a honest living or the person winging it and making a load of easy cash. Lets face it, this happens all the way up to the greedy big wigs, we see it everyday! look at Thomas Cook, the big wigs have made an absolute mint while all the honest folk pay the price.

I've yet to meet a honest self-made millionaire, hell some of these crooks even get Knighthoods for it! I know a Knighted "self made" billionaire very well, he was an associate of my fathers years back. He is the biggest crook you could ever meet and spent years tax and vat evading and committing fraud. He tried to convince my father to invest at one point early on, but my father is to honest a man to deal with the guilt. I won't mention his name but he is a well known entrepreneur.

He doesn't happen to say "you're fired!" A lot does he?

 

[Intoelectrics]

He doesn't happen to say "you're fired!" A lot does he?

No, not quite as well known as that person but known well enough. But didn't that particular person start out "wheeling and dealing" for "cash"?
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My point being that before any of us get on our high moral horses the amount some of us might swindle by doing the odd cash job is pittance compared to the millions that the high flyers swindle. Then when someone gets found out it all becomes some sort of big scandal as if no one else does it