I live in a country that has treated me extremely well. I’ve benefited from a ton of free services paid with taxpayer money including education and healthcare so I feel the responsibility to do my part and pay my taxes.
However every single one of my close relatives expects special treatment and assumes I’m going to accept the payment “under the table” but I don’t and I’ve made it clear from the beginning. They refuse to accept it even when it’s for no extra cost to them. It’s me whose losing money, not them. Still - the idea of me daring to charge them like “regular” people apparently is totally outrageous to them.
I try to be the change I want to see in the world. I judge moral questions by imagining wether the world would be a better or a worse place if everyone else acted like I do. I believe that doing things by the book is the right thing to do here. I understand where they’re coming from and it’s okay to ask but when I say no then it is so. They’re free to use someone else’s services who doesn’t pay their taxes if that’s what they want.
Now I’m basically at the point where no matter what I do someone is going to be unhappy. Ideally I would refuse all work to relatives but that too is going to leave them unhappy. Do I really need to let go of my own morals here so that I’m not seen as a complete asshole by everyone around me?
Maybe offer a small friends and family discount while stressing things can’t be under the table for tax reasons.
It doesn’t even seem to be about money. In the latest case I was going to charge 3hrs + supplies for refurbishing a table that I spent closer to 6 hours working on. They were perfectly willing to pay the amount I was asking for but for some reason they just seem to hate the idea of receiving a bill in the mail instead of me accepting the money right there and then.
Can’t you just accept the immediate cash payment, but make sure that it’s recorded correctly in your accounts.
I don’t know where you live, but the tax law I’m familiar with doesn’t care if the customer received a bill in the post or even if they recieved a bill at all. The critical thing is that all payments received within the tax period are declared.
You could still produce a copy of the bill for your records and even a receipt for the payment if it makes you feel better.
Yeah I was thinking about contacting my accountant to ask if there’s a way to do that. My understanding is that there’s no good way for me to accept cash payments but maybe there’s some loophole like charging myself for it or something. Then I could indeed do it by the book without them even knowing.
Hmm. I’d say if they want that feeling so much… Just give it to them. You can still pay taxes and do the accounting correctly and not tell them. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work, but there are lots of other relationships or families where someone keeps being childish and the other people need to do things behind their back to make things work.
(And the thing that really matters is you doing it right and being able to produce the invoice if being asked. Not that your relatives have that piece of paper.)
Yeah I figured it wasn’t really about the money. My thought was if you offer them a discount then they still feel like they’re being treated special, and maybe they’ll be more willing to pay you using methods that you can track better for your business purposes.