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Comment by eastbound | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

> You doubt Exxon is using cash to evade taxes?

What evidence do you have they are?

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