Quote:
Ed Balls has come under fire for suggesting people should get a written receipt for all transactions, even small gardening jobs.
The shadow chancellor said he always asked for a written record, even if it was just for £10 to cut a hedge, because it was the "right thing to do".
On Sunday Mr Balls told BBC Radio 5's Pienaar's Politics that people should ask for a record of paying somebody, even if it was for small jobs like cutting a hedge, because they have a "legal obligation" to pay tax.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31480231
Anyway:
Quote:
But Mr Duncan Smith told BBC Breakfast Mr Balls's comments demonstrated
"Labour's complete lack of understanding of how business works and how people get by".
Cash payments are not dirty. In case you had gained the opposite impression, paying a self-employed person in cash for doing a job around your house or garden is completely legal.
Furthermore there is no legal obligation on you to keep a record of the payment, or to account for it to anyone at all. It is your money and you can do what you like with it.
All UK tax obligations lie with the self-employed person you are paying. As a matter of fact, a tradesman is not obliged to even offer you a receipt.
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I wonder if his apparent obsession with getting receipts for all and sundry is more to do with the fallout from the MPs' expenses scandal than anything else.
Whatever the case, it does go to show just how out of touch this 'man of the working class' is with the lives, finances and obligations of ordinary people in real world.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-children.html
http://order-order.com/2010/05/04/ed...xpense-abuses/