On 24/07/2012 10:05, Nemo wrote:
Quote
Paying a plumber cash in hand is "morally wrong" because it denies the
revenue vital funds, a Treasury minister said as the government outlined
new ways of cutting down on £5bn in tax avoidance.

David Gauke, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, risked shining a
spotlight on whether any of his government colleagues have ever made
cash in hand payments to plumbers when he described the practice as a
large part of Britain's "hidden economy".
Unquote

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...dspending-hmrc

Trades poeple operate to current moral norms, as displayed by bankers,
politicians, journalists, entertainers, pro footballers etc. Is that news?

It implies that the use of cash for any transaction is potentially a tax
fiddle. Shops, bars, buses, taxis, newspaper sellers, milkmen etc. are
all probably immoral.

And the payers are equally immoral for using cash which enables the
fiddlers.

Is this politician trying to win votes?

The obvious answer is to abolish cash and make all transactions
electronic, executed via a government cloud that tracks and logs
everything. With some clever cloud-side coding the taxes could be
collected automatically - PAYP not PAYE.