Employing a friend.....

[wr.]

My son did some maize carting for a contractor near to you @Hay Farmer. The chap used to cut our maize and I'm sure he was writing the bill in the harvester on his way home as it would arrive two days later and I'd always put a cheque in the post for him the same day. Anyway, my son never had his pay despite a written reminder and a couple of vocal ones. Just got to put it down to experience. I expect you'll know who I'm talking about.

 

[Renaultman]

My son did some maize carting for a contractor near to you @Hay Farmer. The chap used to cut our maize and I'm sure he was writing the bill in the harvester on his way home as it would arrive two days later and I'd always put a cheque in the post for him the same day. Anyway, my son never had his pay despite a written reminder and a couple of vocal ones. Just got to put it down to experience. I expect you'll know who I'm talking about.

Is there nothing you could get him to do and *ahem* 'lose the bill'? Hate owt like that me.

 

[Princess Pooper]

We wanted a builder to do a few small jobs that the big boys couldn't be bothered to quote for. Got a chap out who seemed perfectly competent but I enquired and found out he was not VAT registered. So I said we'd like you to do the work, but we will buy whatever materials you want, so we can claim the VAT. I appreciate that tradesmen make a margin when they sell on materials so I told him to add that margin into his labour costing so that he didn't lose out. Made it clear that we don't do cash jobs. Said he'd have to think about it. Phoned me a couple of days later as he wasn't really happy with what I was asking him to do and 'he didn't want to get into any trouble' and didn't really understand the VAT thing.

Not exactly rocket science is it? Perhaps it was not doing cash jobs that upset him, but I think he couldn't get his head around the fact that I was not trying to steal his margin on materials!

 

[wr.]

Is there nothing you could get him to do and *ahem* 'lose the bill'? Hate owt like that me.

I know what you're saying, but it wasn't worth the hassle in this case. I thought of what my father said years ago when he sold his grey and gold Ferguson 35 to a chap for £350. He allowed the chap to bring the cash in instalments as he was finding things hard at that time and the last £50 never came for a whole barrow load of excuses. Father said, "He'll probably see the need for it before we do."
And he was right.

 

[Renaultman]

I know what you're saying, but it wasn't worth the hassle in this case. I thought of what my father said years ago when he sold his grey and gold Ferguson 35 to a chap for £350. He allowed the chap to bring the cash in instalments as he was finding things hard at that time and the last £50 never came for a whole barrow load of excuses. Father said, "He'll probably see the need for it before we do."
And he was right.

I like to think there is karma, and or you will get your reward in heaven. What goes around comes around.

 

[jamj]

They will be charging the vat on materials , only the labour part won't have vat added

A non vat registered business cannot charge vat on anything.
They will bill you the vat inclusive price they paid for the goods but they cannot itemise the vat.

 

[AJR75]

Try to keep business and friends/ family separate, sometimes it's unavoidable and it always makes me uneasy. Learned the hard way about this and couldn't agree more with the statement "a good deed rarely goes unpunished"