Cards Only!

[Mr Bloke]

24 minutes ago, LovePotion said:

So many things annoy me about the above post but I will try to un-pick. Eateries & bars do make more profit by taking cash but not by tax evasion. They make it by not paying transaction fees to process the payment. For example, if a customer buys a doughnut at £1.70, said doughnut cost them 60p to make, 20% VAT brings it up to 72 pence, 60 pence goes to staffing costs and 30 pence goes to rent and overheads. That leaves 8 pence profit. With cash, the business keeps all of that 8 pence profit. If the customer pays buy card, then the business is charged by the terminal provider around 5 pence for this transaction amount, leaving only 3 pence profit, less than half of the profit they would get with cash.

 

FYI, I make all of my purchases with cash, the tablet I am typing this post on was bought with cash.

Hmmm...

There's a certain amount of truth in this with regards to businesses that sell goods to customers.

In the case of making doughnuts, there's obviously a bit of an audit trail, so if you're buying enough ingredients to make say 1000 doughnuts then it's pretty easy for any accountant or HMRC to spot a bit of a fiddle going on if you then declare that you've only sold 100 doughnuts.

But where businesses are purely providing a service (such as barbers or hand car washes) then there is no such audit trail, and so payment by cash is often the 'preferred' method of payment by many of them...

[Zinger549]

21 minutes ago, HeHasRisen said:

All businesses pay wages in cash do they?

 

I respectfully suggest you have little knowledge of how a business operates. 

If they're paying wages in cash what about tax and NI?

[HeHasRisen]

1 minute ago, Zinger549 said:

If they're paying wages in cash what about tax and NI?

You need to be directing that question to the clear expert on the subject. He/she has a diploma, you know!

Edited June 5, 2022 by HeHasRisen

[Zinger549]

1 hour ago, LovePotion said:

HMRC send a Tax Returns form to the business owner's registered address.

I thought that was mainly for self employed (sole traders). I really can't see many businesses in this day and age paying staff in cash.  Perhaps if they're trying to keep it hidden from the tax man.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Zinger549

[ECCOnoob]

2 hours ago, LovePotion said:

A) Some smaller businesses don't have business accounts, the larger ones that can afford narrower profit margins as they have more sales will be able to open a business account. B) The average employee still works 40 hours weeks, the same as always. Processing card payments can be incredibly slow, if there is no signal, the card declines, the system has to be reset. I was stuck behind a man in Tesco two weeks ago and this problem occured. C) For smaller businesses, the owner can pay it in on his way to the cash & carry periodically. Larger businesses, again with narrower margins use couriers. The more cash they take, the less it impacts on their profit. With cards, it is the opposite!

 

 

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣......

 

......🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

Please stop I can't take it anymore. I can hardly breathe. The world's finest comedians couldn't have come up with material like that.

 

I assume your "business diploma" was from the Del Boy Economics School of Peckham.

 

If a business is big enough to start having employees full time and liable to responsibilities and burdens for sorting out correct national Minimum Wage compliance, tax, national insurance, pension deductions and all the insurances involved in dealing with both general public and employee liabilities, its going to be having its own bank account. Any other type of operation will be moronic and highly risky. 

 

There's also the questions of basic accounting when it comes to profit and loss, tax legality for which, no matter how small the business, books need to be kept. Therefore, continual use of cash for transactions to suppliers, contractors, utilities, premises, HMRC and employees becomes a burden.

 

No person running any sort of substantial legit business in 2022 is going to walk around with wads of cash in their back pocket or a big sack with pound signs on the front of it.

 

The reason for the surge in popularity for use of card payments and electronic transactions, even for small traders, is that cash in a troublesome and costly thing to process. There is not the time for going back and forth to banks, landlords and suppliers depositing it and making payments (...that's if you can even find a local branch open for you or a supplier/ landlord / utility company that has ability to pay by such method).  Cash also is a major risk during its counting, sorting, handling through tills, storage and transportation.

 

Now all a business simply needs to do is get themselves a cheap little white box and quickly download an app on their phone and that's it. Away they go taking dozens, hundreds or thousands of transactions with no hassle.  It can be stored, carried and set up anywhere it needs to be by used. It can be left around on a counter for any of your employees to use with minimal risk compared to having to protect a till full of cash money or carrying around wads of notes on one's person. 

 

The accounts are self-managed, and any transactions to suppliers or your staff can be done at the click of a button.  The auditability is instantly clear and in the event of any theft or fraud has a much better opportunity of being spotted and potentially recovered.

 

For most sensible businesses, the transaction fee and the minimal initial setup costs are far offset by the wider benefits.  That is the reality. Not your warped interpretation.

 

Ask yourself way so many small tradesman, market stalls, independent vendors, small boutiques, taxi services and even ye olde greasy spoons are now increasingly taking card payment options or even refusing cash altogether.

Edited June 5, 2022 by ECCOnoob

[ECCOnoob]

1 hour ago, LovePotion said:

Cash is King and we need to protect our right to use it and keep using it. Never pay with card, it is a slippery slope to a bad place.

Yeah you keep telling yourself that.

 

"....Tradesmen and taxis always prefer cash....."  except for the fact that services like Uber, Cityride and Bolt are kicking the ass of traditional taxi cabs.  There's also the advantage of the drivers made more safe as they are not carrying around loads of cash and don't have to worry about whether or not the job will be paid when people get out as it's all sorted in advance.   I can name dozens of tradesmen who happily get paid by BACS transfer after a quote has been agreed and the work done.  Rural Wi-Fi signal is nothing to do with it. It is not impossible to have card payments dealt with via a phone line as they have been done for decades prior.  It is also possible to deal with the transaction of a job  when the tradie is back home with normal phone line internet access - which they will obviously have to run their business. Even before that, most contractors I would hire for the bigger projects in my home button didn't get paid in a lump sum of cash. They would get a cheque as it was simply ridiculous for any normal person to be messing around dealing is that amount of notes.   

 

Maybe just perhaps, I have been sheltered. You are obviously used to dealing with very different businesses to me. You must know lots of Bodge Job Daves and Market Trader Micks who are all so cash obsessed.

 

Now concentrate, here comes the science bit Jennifer Aniston used to say.....

 

Stats show a 70% decline in people doing cash payments since 2010.  If that sort of drop applied to any other circumstance it would have been killed off a long time ago. Entire businesses now choosing not to accept cash. New entrants to the consumer banking sector working from entirely digital and virtual operations with not a single banknote crossing the threshold.  We even have entire New Digital currencies which people are genuinely and legitimately investing and building without any kind of hard physical manifestation..

 

I bet you're just a sort of person who back in a day would  mourning over the loss of bartering with goats and sheep. Protesting about the introducing of those newfangled bank notes when a coin purse was serving you just well. The sort of person crying over the loss of routine chequebooks.

 

Life evolves. The vast majority of our workforce gets paid through cashless means. They have been doing so for at least the past 40 years. Benefits and pensions are no longer routinely doled out in cash with people wasting their time gathering and clogging up the post office every fortnight...   virtually nobody these days is separating their monies into little brown envelopes ready to wonder round town paying the YEB or the gas board or the council tax, wasting all day popping from building-to-building queueing up.  These days even charity collectors and some street buskers have evolved into having card readers.  We are watching and streaming unknown artists, performers and musicians online - tipping them through credits on our various digital platforms. There are entire objects, projects, performances, arts and films which are being entirely crowdfunded through digital donations by thousands or even millions of anonymous backers.

 

The way we are earning, funding and paying is continually changing.

 

You think what you like, but you are very much in the minority. You're grand gestures about walking out of businesses that don't accept cash will be barely noticed. For many businesses, dinosaur customers like that refusing to embrace change are not welcome. 

 

In my opinion, those businesses that you seem to be supporting that don't accept cards have nothing to be 'proud' of as you declare.  To me just goes to show how outdated and stubborn they are

 

As for what you and the rest of your tin foil hat brigade claim you know is "going on"  that's  just a lot of paranoia and excuse making.

Edited June 5, 2022 by ECCOnoob

[Baron99]

7 hours ago, LovePotion said:

So many things annoy me about the above post but I will try to un-pick. Eateries & bars do make more profit by taking cash but not by tax evasion. They make it by not paying transaction fees to process the payment. For example, if a customer buys a doughnut at £1.70, said doughnut cost them 60p to make, 20% VAT brings it up to 72 pence, 60 pence goes to staffing costs and 30 pence goes to rent and overheads. That leaves 8 pence profit. With cash, the business keeps all of that 8 pence profit. If the customer pays buy card, then the business is charged by the terminal provider around 5 pence for this transaction amount, leaving only 3 pence profit, less than half of the profit they would get with cash.

 

FYI, I make all of my purchases with cash, the tablet I am typing this post on was bought with cash.

My bold. 

 

I don't think you really understand how the real world operates, especially as many businesses are trying to catch up post-pandemic. 

 

If I go to a restaurant, select food & drink from the menu & I know that the bill will come to £100 & the there's a notice on the door that says 'Cash only', then I'll happily hand over my £100.   What the owner of the business, even though they've given me a receipt, chooses to put through their till is their business.  It might be that they decide to do this to every 5th customer but again that is their business & by deciding to keep my £100 aside, that business gets to last another week or the staff get paid that day.   I think you'll also find that the recognised mark up in restaurants is anywhere from 35% to 70% on the purchase price of the restaurant's food purchases. 

 

I was at a restaurant in the centre of Chesterfield a month or so back.   A large sign outside, 'Please note.  At the present time, we are only taking cash.  The nearest cash point is at xxxx St.'  All customers present were obviously happy with the current arrangement but the restaurant has in the past, taken both cash & cards. 

 

Anyway, back to the opening line of your post, 'So many things annoy me about the above post.'   I'm guessing one of the things is that you don't like the fact that someone has the temerity to challenge your argument. 

 

By the way, please divulge what was in the response letter from MP, Ms Bkake.  We'll be able to judge if she's taking your concerns seriously or with a pinch of salt? 

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Baron99

[nikki-red]

2 minutes ago, LovePotion said:

Greene King pubs, a mid range bottle of wine, £6-7 in a supermarket, £21 there! 

The most expensive bottle of wine (excluding champagne) in the Greene King pub I was in yesterday was about 13 quid?

[Baron99]

26 minutes ago, LovePotion said:

Greene King pubs, a mid range bottle of wine, £6-7 in a supermarket, £21 there! 

 

Above is the response from Ms Blake. Now that I read it back, it sounds more promising than I remembered it to be!

Mark-ups for drinks. 

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/214929/why-do-wine-and-spirits-costs-so-much-in-pubs-and-restaurants-compared-to-beer

 

Food is marked up around the 30% mark. 

https://www.lightspeedhq.co.uk/blog/how-to-calculate-restaurant-food-costs-uk/#:~:text=In order to run a,of a dish's menu price.

 

It can be as high as 70% in London but then again, nobody is forcing people to eat at such establishments. 

 

The MP's letter is very much as I would have expected.  'Monitoring' the situation. 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Baron99

[Baron99]

13 minutes ago, LovePotion said:

Completely off topic but a significant number of pubs are taking advantage of the inflation and energy hikes meaning the actual costs of providing the drink is amibguous to the customer. The Head Of Steam on The Crucible Quarter charges £7 for a pint of beer, but another pub I went to charges £2.28. Some pubs are hiking things to as much as people are willing to pay and some are following a structured mark up protocol. It's easy to see which pub is doing which.

My bold. 

 

I'm all for dragging the toplc back on course & the fact is, there is no conspiracy theory to businesses wanting to use cards only if they wish, neither is it a Govt dictat. 

 

I'm guessing I'm a few decades older than you & what is actually driving the use of cards to purchase goods & services is actually the young in society.   I welcome the use of cards for convenience. 

 

I also see that in another thread, your hoping a Sheffield business, 'The Itchy Pig' goes out of business because its gone card only.  Maybe you'd like to explain to the staff there, if it does go out of business, (it won't), that you'd wish them & any similar card only business a 'Happy Unemployment!'. 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Baron99