[jb775]

Don't expect any help from the govt fixing this, it's a win/win from their perspective.

No coins means more businesses forcing credit/debit use. More credit/debit use means it's harder to hide cash transactions and therefore means more tax revenue for the govt. As an added benefit, it creates permanent paper trails that can be utilized when convenient.

I go out of my way to pay cash, now just need to make sure I bring enough change.

[SifJar]

This argument always confuses me, as if "it makes it easier to not pay our taxes" is a legitimate argument for using cash

[quietbritishjim]

Here in the UK, this practice is so common it has a name: "paying cash in hand". Its literal meaning is just paying cash for something, but its implied meaning is that the recipient won't declare it to the tax authority (HMRC), and you often get a discount for paying cash in hand (so I've heard, I've never actually been offered this myself). Of course we're talking about individual tradesmen here, like plumbers or handimen, not big or even medium businesses.

[cameronbrown]

Being paid cash in hand is usually how most teenagers get their first job too. If govt. clamped down on this then you'd see a lot of youngsters struggling to get onto the market, and I believe that's why they let it slide.

[SifJar]

I'm not sure I totally buy this argument - the logic being that teenagers are only employed because employers can get away with paying them less due to lack of tax. But there are already lower minimum wages for these ages, so it'd still be cheaper than hiring older employees. Plus a lot of these jobs would be part time, so could potentially result in an income lower than the personal allowance (currently £12.5k) and be tax-free anyway

[SifJar]

Yep, I'm in the UK too, I'm familiar with the practice - my point is just that it doesn't seem like a legitimate argument to be anti-electronic payments

[rapnie]

Yea. But the paper trail argument is a good one. Banks holding minutely detailed info of your purchase history. A PII goldmine waiting to be exploited.

[dzhiurgis]

As if supermarkets don’t track your purchases...

[rapnie]

If you pay in cash they don't (not as PII anyway), unless you scan your loyalty card or they have facial recognition running on their cams.

[closeparen]

The same amount of PII is on file for your account regardless of your transactions.

[rapnie]

If you only extract once a week from an ATM and pay in cash? No way.

[closeparen]

I think you sre confusing "PII" and "data." The transaction does not identify you (generally), the ID on file for the account identifies you.

[Retric]

PII is more than just the classic SSN, name, and address etc. The IRS uses your last years tax data when verifying your identity for example. Your transaction history is PII as someone can correlate specific transactions to your identity.

[082349872349872]

We (a country not the US) get the opposite argument. For some reason US Treasury Secretaries publicly complain that we have a 1'000 bill in circulation (not accepted at petrol stations). Luckily these days they're motzing more about our central bank purchases than about our cash, and have never bothered with unsolicited opinions on our coinage.

[jacobush]

It makes sense if you are immoral, amoral, or has started to actively distrust what you get for your money and try to "vote with your dollars". Some of that I'd call bad morals, but not necessarily morally inconsistent.

[dheifidjeh]

It also makes sense if you disagree with your government

[jldugger]

May want to read up on seigniorage: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/seigniorage.asp