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Comment by numlock86 | Hacker News Reader

If a merchant, especially in Germany, asks for cash, it's for tax evasion. It's as simple as that. And no, I don't care about your anecdotes how that is not true for your particular case. A small number of exceptions exist of course.

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Olaf Scholz - the countries leader - is involved in the largest tax evasion scandal in the country - CumEx. He knew about it and did nothing to prevent it.

What kind of example does that set for the small business people in the country?

The politicians are massively corrupt in Germany (Berlins mayor lost her doctor title because she cheated and then she became mayor).

I can understand it when small business operators also want to avoid taxes - as the banks regularly also do.

Seems like avoiding credit card fees is a perfectly reasonable explanation, at least in the US where fees exceed 3%. It’s trivial for governments to catch businesses that hold a lot of inventory and are cheating on taxes by more than small amounts.

Not necessarily. Some small business use their cash to buy stolen goods. For example it used to be quite common for restaurants to buy stolen meat using their cash. You can also pay your staff in cash for some of their hours. Both of these are hard to catch unless you actively have people on location tracking the business. Plus removing cash can make other crimes less appealing (like buying stolen meat).

It seems to me like one should police meat theft rather than cash use.

Usually this then says "No card payment under 10 Euros", but still offer card payment for bigger amounts where the fee doesn't matter as much (which IMHO is completely ok).

This is no longer legal under the PSD2 framework.

In Belgium since last summer you have to accept at least 1 form of digital payment now. Some places try to bypass it by only accepting some obscure creditcards.

I'm ambivalent, about card vs. no at small businesses. Places that take cards are more likely to get my business, but beyond that I'm not concerned.

Any evidence behind that wild claim?

Just look closely at your next few receipts. Chances are pretty high that some of them will say something like "Testrechnung" (test invoice) or "Keine Rechnung!" (not a receipt). That's the restaurant preparing to not report that income to the tax authorities.

Many European countries have made certified/financial cash registers mandatory to combat this, but I believe in Germany they are still optional.

The issue is so widespread, I remember hearing that the tax authorities fully expect some industries to only report parts of their income and have made peace with that fact. Mandatory reporting would apparently disrupt the economy too much...

That is the best reason to use cash. Isn't it scary that debit money guarantees you pay more taxes, and it is also used as evidence against you, and to violate your privacy?

Cash doesn't have any of those issues, its amazing. That's why governments hate it! (literally!)

Paying your taxes is not an issue. It's called being responsible.

That's what the people collecting the taxes want you to believe.

How are you paying "more taxes"? Those are the types of taxes you're obliged to pay already. Someone needs to pay for schools and roads!

Because it doesn't get reported as income, there's no record of it. Thats why central banks are purposefully hindering it - it takes away their capacity to confiscate and control with it.

The capacity to not pay taxes is a very important tool of civil disobedience, just like protesting in a public street.

You can still not pay your taxes if you want to use tax fraud as a method of civil disobedience. The government doesn't just grab a random bank account and take money from it.

Sure, they'll send collections after you and get the money one way or another, but it's not like a bank account is going to make any difference there. They'll force open your door and sell your stuff if you make it hard enough for them, not sure how that's better.

It makes the whole difference. the harder it is to do, the less they do it. If not, why would they care?

They care when people owe them money, the same way you care when people owe you money. They prefer not to have to bother to send someone to your house because even though you'll be the one paying for the extra costs, it takes time and effort spent better on other things.

I'm sure the "taxation is theft" crazies will have some legal fanfiction about how the government can't just take your money if you only use cash but in practice you're only getting yourself into trouble for no good reason if you try to commit tax fraud.

Are you sure you have always paid all your taxes?

Pretty sure, yeah. My tax forms have always been filled in for me because the government already knows what I earned from what company. It's why doing taxes takes five to ten minutes every year. With income tax held back automatically by the employer and VAT and other tariffs added directly to the store price, I've never had to think about this stuff.

It's possible that I may have dodged a few dollars of taxes when buying crap out of China when they put a fake bill in the outside to dodge import taxes, but I don't believe there's a way for a consumer to manually pay those once the package has crossed the border undetected. These days they've changed the system, though, so I don't think it would happen again.

Sounds great. I have a business proposition for you.

I will pay you 1000 dollars for the right of taking every single asset you have if at any point it is proven you haven't paid all your corresponding taxes.

This is free money for you and your sense of justice. I can send a contract as soon as today.

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