Large cash withdrawals from Nationwide...

castle96

Not illegal. Common sense. Normal. What anyone would do. A principle is not a principle until it costs you money.. and you would pay it? Yeah, right

colsten

castle96 said:

Not illegal. Common sense. Normal. What anyone would do. A principle is not a principle until it costs you money.. and you would pay it? Yeah, right

Tax evasion is the opposite of common sense, and it is illegal. 

Grumpy_chap

Even this reason does not explain the 'kind Dad' gift needing to be cash.

Herbalus

castle96 said:

Not illegal. Common sense. Normal. What anyone would do. A principle is not a principle until it costs you money.. and you would pay it? Yeah, right

I have declined to give business to an individual in the past because he wanted to charge me 20% for a receipt. He was a carpet fitter. If he’s going to fiddle around with payments like that I couldn’t trust he wouldn’t fiddle around with lower spec carpets or botch the installation somehow. And with no receipt or any paperwork, how could he be held liable or follow up with any sort of guarantee etc. How would I ever prove he did it.

So yes, there are principles that people do follow even when it costs them money. I wouldn’t give a builder £10k in cash for a job - I would find another builder who does things properly.

Grumpy_chap

Often, the cash in hand builder does not pass an efficiency to the customer either.

There is a value for the job, and the cash in hand builder charges that value but then takes the extra for themselves.

Shakin_Steve

When I had a small building firm around 30 years ago, cash was the norm. You quoted for the job and, almost invariably, the customer would say "Oh.....I don't need a receipt" 
How quickly things change, us old boys like a bit of cash in our wallet.

Roger.Wilco

castle96 said:

Not illegal. Common sense. Normal. What anyone would do. A principle is not a principle until it costs you money.. and you would pay it? Yeah, right

Legal / Illegal / Ethical - I won't enter that debate - as it is obvious you have different core values.

If this is indeed your business model - make the most of it while you can... as I suspect that cash as we know it - won't be around for the long term.  Many countries have been legislating against large cash payments - e.g. France (<1000€), Spain (<2500€), Italy (<3000€), Australia (<$10,000) and India...  Some countries have voluntarily become electronic cash economies - like some of the Scandinavian countries and China.

Many different reasons are usually given for legislating against large cash payments - the grey/black/shadow economy is usually what is used by Governments to pass such legislation.  As the UK's shadow economy is estimated at between 10-14% GDP it is quite substantial. The UK Government and various interest groups have written many different policy papers on means and ways of reducing the size of this shadow economy. 

So I suspect that it is only a matter of time - as the combined forces of:

• controlling the economy during the (probable) economic depression from this global health crisis (cash acts as a limit to how much a Government can cut or raise interest rates).
  
• "recovering" some of the (estimated) £40+billion of UK tax lost to HMRC from shadow economy employment and transactions. (it would generate less electorate push-back than raising taxes to pay-back the borrowing that the UK Government has done during the current health crisis)
  

will see the UK Government follow other countries to try to move away from physical non-electrical cash.

I do have reservations regarding such a move as currently electrical cash is managed not by Governments but by corporate interests which unlike Governments are not held accountable by public elections.  But that is another discussion.

https://www.ippr.org/files/2020-01/not-cashless-but-less-cash-jan20.pdf

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-26/cash-ban-so-you-pay-the-bank-to-hold-your-money-what-imf-wants

https://www.lovemoney.com/news/29125/the-uks-100bn-taxfree-shadow-economy

https://www.lovemoney.com/news/57013/cash-in-hand-tax-evasion-morals-right-wrong

https://www.suerf.org/policynotes/6951/restricting-or-abolishing-cash-an-effective-instrument-for-eliminating-the-shadow-economy-corruption-and-terrorism

castle96

Act fast then. If YOU need to

Shakin_Steve

They'll never ban cash in this country, not for quite a while anyway. For every article that is quoted on cashless societies, there is one in defence of cash. Until we have an elderly generation who are comfortable with computers and actually trust the system, cash will be available. The grey vote is, by far, the largest vote. If I felt the need to keep £10,000 in cash, two or three £1400 withdrawals from an ATM per month(£500 Barclays, £300x2 Tesco and £300 Monzo) would soon see me there.

eskbanker

Shakin_Steve said:

They'll never ban cash in this country, not for quite a while anyway. For every article that is quoted on cashless societies, there is one in defence of cash. Until we have an elderly generation who are comfortable with computers and actually trust the system, cash will be available. The grey vote is, by far, the largest vote.

Who said anything about banning cash?  It's a simple fact that its use continues to plummet (58% of payments in 2009, down to 23% in 2019, according to UK Finance) but I don't see anyone suggesting that it's going to stop altogether, and hence the curve in this chart flattening rather than reaching the x-axis:



I don't suppose that anyone would dispute your assertion that older folk would be the most resistant to change, but haven't seen anything that would endorse your view that "The grey vote is, by far, the largest vote", what sources do you claim to support that?