4 ms·

Completely agree. While there's nothing wrong with digital payments, a society without cash just terrifies me. I don't have much to hide, but I don't want eve

Completely agree. While there's nothing wrong with digital payments, a society without cash just terrifies me. I don't have much to hide, but I don't want every action I take with money to be traceable and that data of what I do with my money to be available to all sorts of private interests without my express written consent. No corporation should get to know if I tip my barber, waiter, uber driver, etc... in cash let alone if I decide to buy a bag of weed. I prefer to keep a bit of cash on me for many reasons, and I don't think it's appropriate for any organization to tell me 1. that I can't; and/or 2. that they have the right to know what I'm using it for (or that they have the ability to deny my ability to use my capital in whatever ways I desire). We're not China. As someone who worked with Chinese nationals, even some of them who were complete simps for The Party had no desire to have all their finances completely digitized and tracked. Modern economies have a need for cash, no matter what big banks or credit card companies or FinTech companies think.

eastbound 3y ago
[flagged]
- mfringel 3y ago
  [citation needed]
- s_dev 3y ago
  I don't believe that but there is some truth or less exaggerated percentage of tax evasion that could be quoted. Cash is also necessary for buying illegal drugs for example which a lot of people do in all strata. Other factors that are rarely mentioned in these debates include that cash must be counted and is far more error prone than cashless transactions. Most people counting this cash are actually 19 year olds or people who just aren't enthused by their job, so plenty of mistakes mean cashless transactions have a significant advantage in retail.
  - NickC25 3y ago
    It's also necessary for when some states have a super low minimum wage for restaurant/bar/food workers (because the idea is that you'll make the difference up in tips) - in my state (FL) I believe it's something like $2.75 or $3 per hour. Tips are taxed, and you'd better believe the owner of the establishment takes a cut of those tips, too, if they are reported. You tip cash, all that goes straight to the workers, most of whom are probably not rolling in the dough. It goes quite a long way for those types of folks. The lower the rung you're on economically, the more use you have for cash.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      This is a good example of one way that cash is useful today, but hopefully it's also one that will go away as soon as possible. We should keep cash, but end tipping and slave wages.
- NickC25 3y ago
  Sure, but that also means that taxes on those businesses are burdensome to the point where it's better to not accept digital payments or credit cards. Or people just don't want to pay inflated prices just so a payment processing company gets a nice % of every single purchase. As I said in another post in this thread, I myself run a small business, and the vast majority of my sales are done through digital payments. I have no problem with this, but if I was to cut the payment platforms' fee, I could offer much better prices without having to take a hit on my margins (which themselves are sustainable and healthy, but not fantastic). It's not about me bypassing taxes, it's about providing a better price to my customers.
  - buzzdenver 3y ago
    You're paying the same taxes whether customers pay with cash or CC, aren't you? What am I missing here? I've been to a few restaurants that are cash only. Is that an option for you?
    - NickC25 3y ago
      I'm paying the same taxes, yes, but on top of taxes, I'm paying a cut of each (pre-tax) sale to the CC company or payment processing platform (Stripe, for example, charges 2.3% of each transaction). That cut, while it might seem like pennies to a customer (because in a sense, it literally is roughly a quarter for a given $10 charge) but over time and at scale, those cuts really add up. If my revenue is say, $1m, that's roughly $23k that a CC or payment processor gets right off the bat, so I'm paying taxes on the $1mm but the cut takes a nice hit off my end profits. That $23k would be infinitely more valuable if I could reinvest it in my workforce, my product, my team, or myself. I'm not a restaurant but I am a food service provider. I wish I could go cash-only but that would restrict who I do business with, which at the stage I'm at, is not really an option.
      - buzzdenver 3y ago
        IMO the crux of the issue is that CC companies can legally forbid you from charging a different amount for CC vs cash transactions.
- gwright 3y ago
  This suggest to me that we should have a more sensible taxing system not that we should build a tax system in which the government must observe all transactions.
- jtriangle 3y ago
  Cash prices in many places are lower, so places like gas stations do tons of cash business. I highly doubt Exxon is using cash to evade taxes, thus this is a fantastically poor take.
  - eastbound 3y ago
    You doubt Exxon is using cash to evade taxes? ?? Then why would they encourage to use cash using lower prices? It’s more costly to handle cash than to pay credit card companies. Also, countless examples of people digging into the cash register as part of their position perks, or usual management of remote petrol stations. Need to pay protection money? Cash. Need to pay a provider? Cash.
    - lp0_on_fire 3y ago
      > You doubt Exxon is using cash to evade taxes? What evidence do you have they are?
    - windthrown 3y ago
      What is your basis for "It’s more costly to handle cash than to pay credit card companies."? It seems much more likely that they are encouraging cash with lower prices to avoid paying the typical ~1-5% transaction costs to Visa/MasterCard/Amex rather than a large scale tax evasion scheme. I understand your point about handling cash requiring more labor (no self serve, armored trucks, etc) but I'd be surprised if the cash sales were less profitable than credit cards.
    - toast0 3y ago
      Some business can more easily avoid reporting income if they transact in cash, but gas stations are going to leave an awful lot of audit logs regardless of method of payment. You can run the logs from the pumps vs the log book of fuel purchases. Similar for the convenience store. A brand name station is going to have a computerized register, and sales need to match supply for the most part. There will be some mismatch due to theft, but you can't hide enough cash sales for the tax savings to be worthwhile, IMHO.
- sifar 3y ago
  Physical cash is also the only thing preventing central banks from running large negative interest rates since people would simply start hoarding cash.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > In 99% cases, cash is used to bypass taxes. If the government would care that the citizens are very honest with their taxes, they would create taxation laws that make it incredibly easy to be honest ("a market is controlled by incentives"). The mere fact how complicated the German taxation laws are should be a clear evidence that this is not the case.
- swagempire 3y ago
  Tax evasion in what sense? Surely your earnings are your earnings. If you are a business you have to drop that cash into your bank account at the end of the week or else really it's just petti cash and not significant.Then you have to declare it at the end of the year -- and it could be subject to an audit at anytime. However buying things at a sex shop for example or how much I drink at the local bar on Fridays might be nothing I want my bank to know about.
  - yungporko 3y ago
    i think the comment you're replying to is wrong, but taking payment in cash and spending it as cash lets you buy a hell of a lot of stuff without being tracked. i've known several drug dealers and handymen who have had entire wardrobes, all the tech they own, bikes, even cars, all paid for in cash that never went anywhere near their bank accounts. pretty much the only important thing you can't easily buy with cash is a home.
    - swagempire 3y ago
      You could be right about the comment I'm replying too -- when I click on "parent: it brings up a flagged comment. But either way -- you also might be responding to the wrong comment. My comment was about tax evasion, not tracking the purchasing habits of consumers -- which I think is bad. I'll restate what I said: at the end of the day you'll have to deposit your earnings cash or not in a bank account and declare it as part of your business revenue to the tax man. If you want to keep piles of cash under your mattress somewhere I guess you can, or if you want to purchase things in cash continously -- this might work for individuals like a single man operation-- but to run a legitimate business you will have to hit bank accounts with the money you earn one way or another and this will be eventually subject to an audit should it look suspicious enough.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I doubt that the percentage is that high. I use cash quite a lot, but taxes isn't even on my list of reasons why. It's also hard to see how using cash helps much in tax avoidance except for perhaps with tipping.
- vasdae 3y ago
  Sure, but what's the downside?
- SenAnder 3y ago
  In 99% cases, privacy is used to commit crime. Outlaw privacy, tracking collars on everyone, telescreens in every home and house. Turn your societies into open-air prisons, so you may live in crime and tax-evasion free utopias.
lainga 3y ago
> As someone who worked with Chinese nationals, even some of them who were complete simps for The Party had no desire to have all their finances completely digitized and tracked. HA! Reminds me of Bertolt Brecht's postwar life when he returned to East Germany. In public, good socialist playwright who wrote laudatory letters to the SED, in private, critic of Stalinism... the great firewall between the two? The East German authorities let him keep a Swiss bank account and Austrian citizenship, so he could hold the earnings from his plays out of their reach.
gumballindie 3y ago
> I don't have much to hide I have everything to hide from corporations. If they want my data they have to pay me. Why are governments forcing me to feed a database owned by some corporation for free? Every product you buy and pay for collects data about you. Now they want to know everything i buy from other people and corporations too. Guaranteed transaction data will be made available to the highest bider. Crazy times.
throw10920 3y ago
> As someone who worked with Chinese nationals, even some of them who were complete simps for The Party had no desire to have all their finances completely digitized and tracked. Heck, even if I/they were ok with the government tracking them, our current big private payment networks (Visa/Mastercard) actively track you and sell your transaction data to buyers - I really don't want that. Unless and until Visa/Mastercard/et al are legally forbidden from selling or sharing your transaction data, there will always be a legitimate use for cash, and it's immoral to not take cash payments.

eastbound 3y ago

[flagged]

mfringel 3y ago
[citation needed]
s_dev 3y ago
I don't believe that but there is some truth or less exaggerated percentage of tax evasion that could be quoted. Cash is also necessary for buying illegal drugs for example which a lot of people do in all strata. Other factors that are rarely mentioned in these debates include that cash must be counted and is far more error prone than cashless transactions. Most people counting this cash are actually 19 year olds or people who just aren't enthused by their job, so plenty of mistakes mean cashless transactions have a significant advantage in retail.
- NickC25 3y ago
  It's also necessary for when some states have a super low minimum wage for restaurant/bar/food workers (because the idea is that you'll make the difference up in tips) - in my state (FL) I believe it's something like $2.75 or $3 per hour. Tips are taxed, and you'd better believe the owner of the establishment takes a cut of those tips, too, if they are reported. You tip cash, all that goes straight to the workers, most of whom are probably not rolling in the dough. It goes quite a long way for those types of folks. The lower the rung you're on economically, the more use you have for cash.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    This is a good example of one way that cash is useful today, but hopefully it's also one that will go away as soon as possible. We should keep cash, but end tipping and slave wages.
NickC25 3y ago
Sure, but that also means that taxes on those businesses are burdensome to the point where it's better to not accept digital payments or credit cards. Or people just don't want to pay inflated prices just so a payment processing company gets a nice % of every single purchase. As I said in another post in this thread, I myself run a small business, and the vast majority of my sales are done through digital payments. I have no problem with this, but if I was to cut the payment platforms' fee, I could offer much better prices without having to take a hit on my margins (which themselves are sustainable and healthy, but not fantastic). It's not about me bypassing taxes, it's about providing a better price to my customers.
- buzzdenver 3y ago
  You're paying the same taxes whether customers pay with cash or CC, aren't you? What am I missing here? I've been to a few restaurants that are cash only. Is that an option for you?
  - NickC25 3y ago
    I'm paying the same taxes, yes, but on top of taxes, I'm paying a cut of each (pre-tax) sale to the CC company or payment processing platform (Stripe, for example, charges 2.3% of each transaction). That cut, while it might seem like pennies to a customer (because in a sense, it literally is roughly a quarter for a given $10 charge) but over time and at scale, those cuts really add up. If my revenue is say, $1m, that's roughly $23k that a CC or payment processor gets right off the bat, so I'm paying taxes on the $1mm but the cut takes a nice hit off my end profits. That $23k would be infinitely more valuable if I could reinvest it in my workforce, my product, my team, or myself. I'm not a restaurant but I am a food service provider. I wish I could go cash-only but that would restrict who I do business with, which at the stage I'm at, is not really an option.
    - buzzdenver 3y ago
      IMO the crux of the issue is that CC companies can legally forbid you from charging a different amount for CC vs cash transactions.
gwright 3y ago
This suggest to me that we should have a more sensible taxing system not that we should build a tax system in which the government must observe all transactions.
jtriangle 3y ago
Cash prices in many places are lower, so places like gas stations do tons of cash business. I highly doubt Exxon is using cash to evade taxes, thus this is a fantastically poor take.
- eastbound 3y ago
  You doubt Exxon is using cash to evade taxes? ?? Then why would they encourage to use cash using lower prices? It’s more costly to handle cash than to pay credit card companies. Also, countless examples of people digging into the cash register as part of their position perks, or usual management of remote petrol stations. Need to pay protection money? Cash. Need to pay a provider? Cash.
  - lp0_on_fire 3y ago
    > You doubt Exxon is using cash to evade taxes? What evidence do you have they are?
  - windthrown 3y ago
    What is your basis for "It’s more costly to handle cash than to pay credit card companies."? It seems much more likely that they are encouraging cash with lower prices to avoid paying the typical ~1-5% transaction costs to Visa/MasterCard/Amex rather than a large scale tax evasion scheme. I understand your point about handling cash requiring more labor (no self serve, armored trucks, etc) but I'd be surprised if the cash sales were less profitable than credit cards.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Some business can more easily avoid reporting income if they transact in cash, but gas stations are going to leave an awful lot of audit logs regardless of method of payment. You can run the logs from the pumps vs the log book of fuel purchases. Similar for the convenience store. A brand name station is going to have a computerized register, and sales need to match supply for the most part. There will be some mismatch due to theft, but you can't hide enough cash sales for the tax savings to be worthwhile, IMHO.
sifar 3y ago
Physical cash is also the only thing preventing central banks from running large negative interest rates since people would simply start hoarding cash.
aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> In 99% cases, cash is used to bypass taxes. If the government would care that the citizens are very honest with their taxes, they would create taxation laws that make it incredibly easy to be honest ("a market is controlled by incentives"). The mere fact how complicated the German taxation laws are should be a clear evidence that this is not the case.
swagempire 3y ago
Tax evasion in what sense? Surely your earnings are your earnings. If you are a business you have to drop that cash into your bank account at the end of the week or else really it's just petti cash and not significant.Then you have to declare it at the end of the year -- and it could be subject to an audit at anytime. However buying things at a sex shop for example or how much I drink at the local bar on Fridays might be nothing I want my bank to know about.
- yungporko 3y ago
  i think the comment you're replying to is wrong, but taking payment in cash and spending it as cash lets you buy a hell of a lot of stuff without being tracked. i've known several drug dealers and handymen who have had entire wardrobes, all the tech they own, bikes, even cars, all paid for in cash that never went anywhere near their bank accounts. pretty much the only important thing you can't easily buy with cash is a home.
  - swagempire 3y ago
    You could be right about the comment I'm replying too -- when I click on "parent: it brings up a flagged comment. But either way -- you also might be responding to the wrong comment. My comment was about tax evasion, not tracking the purchasing habits of consumers -- which I think is bad. I'll restate what I said: at the end of the day you'll have to deposit your earnings cash or not in a bank account and declare it as part of your business revenue to the tax man. If you want to keep piles of cash under your mattress somewhere I guess you can, or if you want to purchase things in cash continously -- this might work for individuals like a single man operation-- but to run a legitimate business you will have to hit bank accounts with the money you earn one way or another and this will be eventually subject to an audit should it look suspicious enough.
JohnFen 3y ago
I doubt that the percentage is that high. I use cash quite a lot, but taxes isn't even on my list of reasons why. It's also hard to see how using cash helps much in tax avoidance except for perhaps with tipping.
vasdae 3y ago
Sure, but what's the downside?
SenAnder 3y ago
In 99% cases, privacy is used to commit crime. Outlaw privacy, tracking collars on everyone, telescreens in every home and house. Turn your societies into open-air prisons, so you may live in crime and tax-evasion free utopias.

lainga 3y ago

> As someone who worked with Chinese nationals, even some of them who were complete simps for The Party had no desire to have all their finances completely digitized and tracked. HA! Reminds me of Bertolt Brecht's postwar life when he returned to East Germany. In public, good socialist playwright who wrote laudatory letters to the SED, in private, critic of Stalinism... the great firewall between the two? The East German authorities let him keep a Swiss bank account and Austrian citizenship, so he could hold the earnings from his plays out of their reach.

gumballindie 3y ago

> I don't have much to hide I have everything to hide from corporations. If they want my data they have to pay me. Why are governments forcing me to feed a database owned by some corporation for free? Every product you buy and pay for collects data about you. Now they want to know everything i buy from other people and corporations too. Guaranteed transaction data will be made available to the highest bider. Crazy times.

throw10920 3y ago

> As someone who worked with Chinese nationals, even some of them who were complete simps for The Party had no desire to have all their finances completely digitized and tracked. Heck, even if I/they were ok with the government tracking them, our current big private payment networks (Visa/Mastercard) actively track you and sell your transaction data to buyers - I really don't want that. Unless and until Visa/Mastercard/et al are legally forbidden from selling or sharing your transaction data, there will always be a legitimate use for cash, and it's immoral to not take cash payments.