MONEY MORAL DILEMMA:Should Chanelle avoid using Ziggy?

panchis

If you think on how many millions were lost in corporate tax last year i should't hesitate in using ziggy. He would only pay a smaller fraction than those with a licence to brake tax laws.

If ziggy is good he will get the job and will save me money.

Dangermouse23

Never trust a decorator named after a David Bowie concept album:beer:.

supermum2007

Absolutely she should report him! It's people like that that give a bad name to tradespeople everywhere. If we have to pay tax, so should he. And by being so blatant about why he's charging so much less, he's clearly doing it often, and anyway, now she knows about what he's up to, if she doesn't report him she'll be helping him to defraud the government! Although, I do say that the tax system is ridiculously complicated and we all pay far too much tax!

Primrose

If Ziggy is avoiding tax, he probably doesn't have indemnity insurance either, so how would Chanelle feel if he spilt paint all over her carpets or furniture and didn't have the insurance cover to compensate her? Whilst I understand that nobody likes paying tax if they can avoid it, the rest of us are forced to through PAYE. Ziggy is just another form of benefits cheat and I would report him. The tax revenue lost through people like him could be spent on better NHS services for the rest of the population, or other infrastructure facilities we all need.

fruitbat_2

No, and she should shop him - why should he earn money undercutting honest tradesmen, only to defraud the IR?

When my dog walker took maternity leave (for which she was able to claim maternity benefit because she was honest and paid her taxes) one possible replacement was a woman who told me she would only accept cash payment because she didn't pay tax. I was then told that she was claiming benefits, so she was taking from the state, and earning money which she didn't declare, so in effect cheating twice - and she charged more than the honest dogwalker! Needless to say I found someone else.

Queenieviolet

...lots of complaints about tax evaders and yet a surprisingly huge amount of customers who ask 'can you do me a deal for cash?'!!

mattb74

It needs pointing out, before everyone gets on their high horse, that there are two types of tax tradesmen pay.
1) Income tax
2) VAT

Presumably Ziggy is not charging VAT to the client (he'd be hard pushed to avoid income tax if he was self-cert - unless registered unemployed) but he could be doing this legitamately. As far as I know tradesmen only have to charge VAT if their annual GROSS income is above £60K - working on a 100% profit after costs this means they could effectively earn £30K take-home without ever charging VAT to the customer. This is the case with many tradesmen who work alone and they ARE NOT BREAKING THE LAW.

If they want to take on more work they can still avoid charging VAT to the client by setting up another company, provided that the type of work company 2 deals with is significantly different from Company 1 e.g. decorating in one and building in the other.

So don't assume all tradesmen who take cash in hand, or admit to not paying tax, are crooks!!!!

Henwen

Definitely she should shop him. Not paying income tax means we pay for his national health, kids schools etc etc. Why should we? The cost is not really much lower than the other tradesmen - this kind of behaviour raises taxes on all of us.

I agree with the point about VAT though - some small businesses/tradespeople correctly do not need to pay VAT as their turnover is too small. There are a lot who have not registered when they should have though.

For works to the house (ie structural not just decorating) think about how it will look to a buyer of your house if you can't produce a proper invoice and receipt etc

tomwakefield

Tax evasion is theft. If she condones his illegal activities because it's financially beneficial to her, it's little better than condoning robbery if she gets a cut of the "swag".

I would have no hesitation in reporting them, and I would refuse to hire them. I would rather pay more and use someone legitimate.

guppy

The likes of Ziggy are usually chancers, trying to scam a few quid in the short term wherever they can.

If he's not bothered about tax and accounts, then he's probably even less worried about liability insurance, quality workmanship, maintaining his reputation, or sustaining any sort of long term business or customer service beyond the next few weeks.

Chancers never last long term, and its usually the customer that loses out.