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Comment by DangitBobby | Hacker News Reader

The article mentions that they were "lucky" because in many places throughout the country, the physical location they would have needed to visit would have no available appointments until after taxes were due. Further, it wasn't a 30 minute appointment, it was a 30 minute appointment made well in advance, after which they (illegally?) _refused refused cash payment_, followed by another 30 minute appointment a week later. Except it wasn't timeboxed to 30 minutes because they didn't bother to tell them (or didn't know) how long it would take to make this simple transaction. Notice your options are to 1) have a bank or 2) use non-traditional digital means which all charge some form of "convenience fee" or 3) suffer major hassle to pay cash without surcharge.

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Conversely, in many locations throughout the country (Fargo, ND being one of them), you can walk into the IRS building without an appointment and converse directly with an agent who will happily take cash, almost every day. They didn't want to go somewhere else, so if cost them just over a week in process. There are costs to living in bureaucratic hotspots.

It's not illegal to travel large distances within the USA while carrying large amounts of cash. But it is extremely risky to do so because it can be seized by any number of law enforcement agencies and will leave you with little to no recourse on getting it back.

Somehow, law enforcement seems to be aware of when a large cash withdraw was made recently. The only time I was ever asked during a traffic stop, "are you carrying with you a large amount of cash" was about a week after I withdrew $12k from my bank account (and signed a buttload of forms for the privilege).

Fargo ND may be one of the least accessible cities in the continental US relative to where people actually live. I assume they at least have an airport but it’s still going to be an all day trip, probably overnight, from where I live.

Remote areas don’t get a lot of foot traffic isn’t very helpful.

Well, unless you live in Fargo or Moorehead, Minnesota. Anyway, I presume that the IRS office is staffed in proportion to the local population.

With multiyear budget shortfalls and high costs of living in major bureaucratic hotspots? I doubt this very much. That might be a goal, but probably not one that is regularly achieved.

You will notice that much of the de-facto mission of government for the past ~50 years has been to replace a given institutional function, for which there is a clear and attainable path to effective implementation for the good of the public, with a private middleman who may or may not be friends with/former colleagues of/funding the election campaign of an interested politician or bureaucrat (or to prevent the reversion thereof). You may argue that this is somehow more cost-effective or efficient, but it's happening all the same. So much energy is invested in the great battles involved in this mission that we have no time or funding to address the new and pressing dilemmas which as-of-yet have no solutions, public or private.

You think making it convenient to pay the IRS in cash would cost society less than the transaction fees from banks or money orders or whatever?

I sure don't.

Making the calculation part tedious is as shifty as it can be. The cash part might be a tad more reasonable though.

For context, other countries are also progressively nudging people away from cash, or any in person payment means really. France gov will straight refuse any payment above 300E at the tax office, be it by cash, check or credit card. The goal I assume is straight up to simplify their operation, as there's no middle-men, and they otherwise do serious efforts to make it easy for the tax payer.

Just want to reinforce, probably the euro does not, but all US currency contains the phrase "this note legal tender for all debts, public and private" which indicates that the IRS must accept cash, they can't refuse it.

The “private” part of that is not enforceable. Though I’d personally love if it was so I could buy a cup of coffee at an airport in 2023 without using an app or credit card.

yes, the private part of that is enforceable, but it says "debt". So, a retailer can say "no cash" but if you somehow are in debt to a retailer (say for example that you already ate the meal at the restaurant), you are allowed to settle your debt with cash, all debts, public and private. If they try take you to court or try to press charges, if you're waving cash, they are out of luck.

I don’t think buying a cup of coffee counts as paying a debt. Could a private debt collector legally refuse cash? (I’ve always presumed they couldn’t)

The debt is created when you order the coffee and they confirm your order.

No. You don’t owe anything until the coffee is in your hand.

Or until they cancel the transaction.

If you order the coffee, they say “okay that’ll be $2.87”, and you try to pay with cash, they can cancel the order. Poof, no debt.

Now if they drop the check at your table after you’ve enjoyed the cup of coffee, it’s different IMO.

But if they made it clear at the time of ordering that they didn’t accept cash, then a customer who orders knowing that’s the only payment medium they have would presumably be the one breaching the contract when they weren’t able to pay? I guess the remedy to that would be to create a debt, but I’d also presume that could also include any other damages incurred by the coffee vendor for facilitating the cash payment.

The debt doesn't vanish, you've just transferred it back to the company. They aren't making coffee without cost.

They're free to waive your debt rather than accept payment.

No, the debt is still there as they've paid for the beans, staff, processing etc.

They'd temporarily moved their debt onto you and now had to accept it back again. But it hasn't gone away.

Yes it is gone, it's considered a loss.

Aren't there safeguards around that notion ?

For instance, someone should probably be barred from paying a personal debt of 1000 dollars in 1 cent coins. I couldn't google my way through the US code, for illustration this is the Singapore limits:

https://www.mas.gov.sg/currency/circulation-currency/accepti...

Unsurprisingly France also has rules on what limits can be set on accepting cash:

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F10999#...).

I have a family member that works for a county court and they've had court ordered payments paid with a wheelbarrow of pennies before. Made the person count out the entire thing before accepting it.

Hmm. It is pretty easy to file for an extension, which would I guess put you past the busy time for the office. Although I guess one would want to double check and make sure they don’t end up with some penalties.

Even with a filing extension, you still have to pay what you owe on time or face penalties and interest.

Do you technically need a bank? You should be able to head to the post office or Walmart and pay with a money order.

Money orders are $1000 maximum, and they have fee of $2.40, so you might need to pay couple of dollars extra depending on how much you owe.

You can pay for things with multiple money orders. I used to pay my rent this way.

Tangentially, if you use USPS money orders, it has a fun side effect of making any fraud carried out with money orders, i.e. buying something on Craigslist, into a federal crime. Which is investigated by USPIS (United states postal inspection service).

He didn’t tell us how much he spent on parking and gas to go to the IRS office twice.

The downtown Boston tax office is 2.5 miles from the author's workplace. He could have walked, biked, or taken the MTA, which would be free if it already had a monthly pass. The MTA planner says it takes 21 min at the fastest.

So for him, it's likely the transit cost was $0.

Having a monthly pass is not free.

By "free" I mean there was no additional cost over already-budgeted use.

Shoes are not free. Bikes are not free. Food is not free.

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