So much so, that we have places passing laws prohibiting cashless establishments, because they are excluding a large part of the population.
Well, in Socialist Germany we don't fordid such things.
We just mandate that everyone has to accept Euro. Since coins and bills are the only Euro there is, you have to accept cash ;)
Of course you can accept other things, like the electronic things that make banks increase your account, but that is up to you.
Well, your western neighbour (Netherlands) has the same mandate but there are more and more shops where only electronic payment is possible. Since electronic payment is performed in Euro these shops say they are following mandate. My employer (housing) also does not accept cash but that is mainly to prevent fraude where someone subrents out his house illegaly for a much larger sum, gets paid in cash and then pays his rent in cash.
There was some discussion in parlement recently about this, because appearently some (medically licensed) apothecary's stopped accepting cash and people who needed meds which required an additional payment couldn't get them because they only had cash. The apothecary in question is in a questionable neighbourhood and has been robbed a few times.
I understand electronic payment is much more convenient for business owners, but what I dislike is that in our country paying cash is starting to get frowned upon / associated with crime. It's true that many criminals have loads of cash to spend, but paying cash in itself is not a shady thing to do and shouldn't be seen as such. In fact I think paying cash is a very useful budgeting tool for some people. I think many people have no idea how far advanced the cashless society already is. For example, if you need to prove you've paid certain expenses for tax purposes, like childcare, you can't just prove it with a signed receipt from the childcare organisation. You also need to show a bank statement showing that you've taken out that exact amount of money in cash right before the payment, or the taxman can legally assume you're laundering money.
I understand the fight against the illegal economy (I live in the south, narco's rule this place) but at the same time, you don't want to put the whole informal economy under government watch. There's nothing wrong with people making a little bit of cash through selling used items or occasionally (not as a real job) providing services to friends or neighbours like fixing a bike or cleaning a home. The informal economy = not necessary criminal and fullfills an important role in society.
I understand you point but there is a large grey area in cash payment. In the daycare example, this is resolved at our end by the fact that you have to work a minimum number of hours to be eligible for a subsidy. Both the employer and the daycare have to report your hours+income/cost. If you don't have enough working hours because your boss pays you partly in cash without taxes then you simply cannot receive the subsidy. Pay taxes, get cheaper daycare.
My wife works too few hours for the amount of daycare we receive though so we are only partially subsidized. The city wanted to sponsor us but for 80,- per month more we can also use daycare during the school holidays :P Since we are mustachian this is no problem.
The law over here is also that at least minimum wage is paid by wire, the amount over minimum wage can be paid in cash. This is for a few reasons I can think of:
1. If you owe someone money, this makes it possible to deduct part of the with a judge's approval
2. Most costs like housing, electric, healthcare etc. Can only be paid via bank transfer, if you have at least the bare minimum there are fewer chances of not being able to pay on time.
It totally makes sense for the employer to have to pay at least the minimum wage in cash. Ultimately this protects the worker most of of all.
But that's not what I meant. As a user of childcare who received subsidy (kot) which for non-Dutch readers is almost every two-income family in the country, to qualify for the subsidy you need to prove you've actually paid the invoices. You can get random checks. This part makes sense.
What doesn't make sense is that an invoice signed off by the receiver of the payment is not valid proof of payment. You need to accompany every invoice with a copy of your bank statement showing either the transfer to the daycare's bank account or a withdrawal of the exact amount of cash at the same date as the payment was made. If you cannot do this - for example because you're a money launderer, or because you like to budget with cash and withdraw your money from your account when it's paid, of because you're a small business owner who receives payments in cash and doesn't want to pay a lot of costs to put that money in the bank to withdraw it later on, you have to pay all the received subsidy back. This can be a 4/5-figure sum a year and they can go back 5 years.
I do think it is really unfair to lump every single cash payment in with fraud. Cash money is valid currency and it should stay that way. The way our law and tax authorities think right now, is 'if you use cash you are a criminal unless you can prove otherwise and the burden of proof is on you". They are also not honest about this - obviously every receiver of childcare subsidy gets a letter about needing proof of payment but they don't tell that they don't accept the regular proof of payment, a signed invoice by the receiver.
I see a lot of people with tax debts and 80% of the high tax debts I see is linked to cash payment of invoices. These are debts sometimes higher than a family's yearly income and will put them in poverty for years. I'm confident the vast majority of them aren't criminals.
Topic: Mustachian People Problems (just for fun) (Read 5326625 times)