Big Brother's watching!

[Hazell B]

In early December I was bet that I couldn't spend a set amount of cash each week that the government would never know about. Figuring it wouldn't be easy, though perhaps not as hard as climbing Everest, a sum was set at £40.

I'm struggling to manage it.

Yes, spending almost any money these days without a paper trail is harder than expected. I use my Tesco Clubcard on groceries, Nectar on diesel (plus need the recepit for business use anyway), pay most of my bills via the bank, have to register major purchases like TV's and so on in the shop and the list goes on. Even if I bought a horse, it has to be passported and registered officially as mine.

Determination made me return a computer we'd bought by debit card and get a refund, so I can then buy another in cash in the hope of no forms being filled in and I can claw back a hope of winning my bet. Problem is that I can't buy a computer every ten weeks for the whole year :p :

Then I read about a pensioner who's probably stolen millions via scamming the government. With so much information at hand, how can they miss that?! :eek:

Anyway, try spending cash without leaving evidence these days. It ain't easy unless you shop only in markets, pubs and takeaways like a chav :mark:

[LeonBrooke]

Why is it a concern that this paper trail exists?

[Drew]

Unfortunetely so, but you have to decide whether the systems in place are there to protect you or not. Should you decide it's not, you'll have to ignore it anyway.

But then again it all depends on what you believe, I'm sure many will disagree with my view :)

[tsarcasm]

The overall lack of privacy concernes me frequently. I've been asked for my SSN ID # at RadioShack!! (aka Argos) I politly decline but it's odd.

I will not be implanted with a VeriChip RFID for commerce, it's the mark of the devil

[Mark]

The data may be collected and logged but there is so much of it these days, who's looking at it? It's all very well collecting it but you have to analyse (or mine it, technically speaking) to get the info you need. So it's still quite possible for things to be logged but if they fall outside the normal patterns, get completely missed.

PS. Brown has just robbed £150 from me today so that I can drive my car around, ho hum :|

[Mark]

The data may be collected and logged but there is so much of it these days, who's looking at it? It's all very well collecting it but you have to analyse (or mine it, technically speaking) to get the info you need. So it's still quite possible for things to be logged but if they fall outside the normal patterns, get completely missed.

PS. Brown has just robbed £150 from me today so that I can drive my car around, ho hum :|

[Daniel]

The overall lack of privacy concernes me frequently. I've been asked for my SSN ID # at RadioShack!! (aka Argos) I politly decline but it's odd.

I will not be implanted with a VeriChip RFID for commerce, it's the mark of the devil
WTF? Why would someone ask for your SSN#? I'd have reported them to their company.

[Hazell B]

Why is it a concern that this paper trail exists?

I'll lose my bet! :p :
It started when a friend said I'd have to start being steady banking my money now I'm earning enough to pay tax and me saying I had no intention of dodging paying income tax. It got us wondering how hard it would be to avoid getting caught if somebody self employed, or a worker claiming benfits illegally, did try defrauding the tax people. Or, how easy it would be for the government to catch them.

Now I've thought about it and tried avoiding the paper trail, it's hit me just how much can be checked by our own 'leaders' very easily. How on earth they don't catch more tax dodgers and thieves is beyond me - after all how many bank employees or cashiers can really afford a high council tax band house, large Merc and private school after only six months in the job? :p : But some of them get away with it for years ...... and some never get caught!

[LeonBrooke]

Apologies if your system is similar and this explanation sounds patronising:

Here income tax is managed by your employer and the IRD so you generally never have to bother with it, which means that the IRD has a record of everything you're earning from employers, benefits, etc., so they should have an easy time checking if you're being fraudulent, but I just think it's laziness that they don't.

I've been getting a student allowance for the past three years, and at the end of one year I spent three days as a reader-writer for the junior exams at my old high school. I declared this to all the relevant authorities, and that it was only for three days, but six months later I got a phonecall asking me if that was still going on and if I was defrauding them. They were just being stupid! They found out about it through the IRD, who would have had records for only one payment from the school, so they should have known that it wasn't ongoing. Laziness and stupidity.

[Daniel]

Apologies if your system is similar and this explanation sounds patronising:

Here income tax is managed by your employer and the IRD so you generally never have to bother with it, which means that the IRD has a record of everything you're earning from employers, benefits, etc., so they should have an easy time checking if you're being fraudulent, but I just think it's laziness that they don't.

I've been getting a student allowance for the past three years, and at the end of one year I spent three days as a reader-writer for the junior exams at my old high school. I declared this to all the relevant authorities, and that it was only for three days, but six months later I got a phonecall asking me if that was still going on and if I was defrauding them. They were just being stupid! They found out about it through the IRD, who would have had records for only one payment from the school, so they should have known that it wasn't ongoing. Laziness and stupidity.
Thing is Leon. Hazell is self employed so she is her own employer.

[LeonBrooke]

True enough... so she can defraud the system as much as she likes! Yes, um, that makes my above post largely irrelevant...

...except that complaining is fun sometimes.

[Hazell B]

Yeah, that's pretty much it Daniel.
The point is that I could easily spend for example £100 on stock and have all the recepits for it, then claim to have sold it for only £120 instead of the £180 I should (and did) sell it for - thus avoiding income tax on £60 of my wage. Okay, that's simplifying the whole thing, but it's possible. I could just be plain bad at business, or avoiding tax. However, if I then spend £180 and there's a paper trail, they'd be able to catch me. If I was smart, I'd only ever spend £120 that's tracable and the rest cash, thus avoiding capture.

I'm not dodging tax, but I am now interested in the subject after the bet was placed.

I'm also interested in how so many self employed people do get away with it. They must be idiots thinking they won't be caught - or is it commonly not checked on, I wonder? It's annoying that they do it. Plus all those people claiming benefits when they're out of work, yet earn cash in hand - that just really, really annoys me.

[LeonBrooke]

You're right Hazell - they could catch you - if they knew what they were looking for. I think the people who do those sorts of jobs are simply too lazy or don't know what they're looking at. Alternately you don't get one person looking at a person's whole record to find discrepancies like that.

[jim mcglinchey]

.

I'm also interested in how so many self employed people do get away with it. They must be idiots thinking they won't be caught - or is it commonly not checked on, I wonder? It's annoying that they do it. Plus all those people claiming benefits when they're out of work, yet earn cash in hand - that just really, really annoys me.

Id say that very few self employed people get away with it if they are making all their returns, and thats not optional. Its a cliche, but theres always some room to be creative in your accounting, and theres always the grey economy, cash in hand, no questions asked.