As I'm writing this, the day's tax avoidance/evasion/whatever story is the question of whether paying someone in cash when you know it's being done to avoid tax is immoral or not. There's been plenty of views on either side. In particular, there's been lots of obfuscation on the grounds that sometimes cash is being used for very good reasons (reducing credit risk, making it easier to pay for costs later in the day, reducing banking fees etc etc) - and that somehow because sometimes cash is fine, it's impossible to identify cases where it's not above board.
All of this is pretty feeble, really. Obviously there are loads of occasions when cash is used for perfectly good reasons. Equally, there are some when it's used to evade taxes. Most of the time both parties know which of those situations they're in (and it may even have been prompted by the purchaser, not the seller). Whether to accept an offer to pay in cash is a moral issue for the buyer of services, and morals are personal. Personally, I wouldn't do it, and if someone I know does it I like them a little less. That's just what I think and I wouldn't particularly try to impose my views on anyone else. But all the distraction around "Well, sometimes it's OK because of..." or "How am I supposed to know if the seller's paying his taxes?" is really pathetic. You'll almost always know the score. Make your own moral decision and go with it - but don't pretend you're in the dark.
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