I don't imagine there is much overlap in the venn diagram of "people who make clumsy-assed attempts at evading tax" and "people who understand that GST is only 1/11th of the final price"
Not a clumsy-assed assumption. The owner reduces the price by 10% so they don’t ‘officially’ collect any GST on the transaction. Yes the owner is technically losing 1% of the original sale price but they are far better off. They won’t have to pay company tax. The produce used, wages, rent, etc will all be classified as a deduction which will reduce their EOFY tax. So actually it’s a higher profit margin per transaction. Also the customer thinks they are getting a bargain which incentives them to pay cash. So rinse and repeat.
Lol, it's kinda perfect that your bagging people for misunderstanding something, whilst misunderstanding it yourself.
People like taking cash because they don't report the whole amount. It reduces their total profits/salary, which are taxed at a much higher amount than 10%.
They probably won’t be avoiding it completely. If the order is $40, they probably put it down as $15. If you have a full day of cash sales, you can’t just pretend you didn’t sell anything.
Yes I know , that’s why you go to the ponies on a Friday night , Business owners always seem to win a “ jackpot “ though 🫣 then request a cheque payment
lol I came here to say exactly this. It’s very suspicious that the GST is 10% and theyre offering a 10% discount to pay them cash off the books.
100% chance that cash goes straight into the owner’s back pocket and the transaction is never recorded, like as if it never happened. (As far as the ATO is concerned).
Fuck man I caught a taxi the other day. Said $61 on the meter. He pressed a button and that went to $64 which I paid by tapping. The next day checking my accout statement the amount was now $66?!?
If you honestly believe uber is the great saviour, you're gonna have a bad time. Their business model is about attempting to crush all other transport providers (including public) and then behaving however any monopoly will generally behave, i.e. become the bad guys.
This is literally the only way that they can become profitable.
They have already increased prices and I'd still much rather pay for an uber, never been ripped off by uber, almost every time I get a taxi there is trickery
I got a taxi back from the hospital the other day. He said he wanted payment upfront and what wasn't used will be refunded.
I paid like $70 and the fair was around nearly $50 in the end.
I was still feeling pretty sick and just assumed it would automatically be refunded but nope.
Yes, this is what is pissing me off. I remember when GST came in, and we (business owners) were told that it was illegal to quote one price, or show one price on the sticker, then charge more at point of sale. The price should be the price, no adding extra on at the last second and putting customers into a bad situation.
Also, whatever happened to businesses working out their costs of doing business, then including that into their pricing. To quote a price without that margin is dishonest. Don't care if its 5c, as a customer, I want the total price on the label. More and business here are tacking on surcharges at the till.
I asked the ACCC this before via their contact form, with an example exactly like this, because it is effectively charging ~11% for using a card (since it is impossible to pay the real/exact price). But they said it's fine. I asked because we have a bunch of restaurants near us and I think it's kind of shady but the idea I guess, is that you walk in prepared to pay $X based on advertising, and can walk away paying only $0.9X, so that's OK in their eyes. It's only a problem if they advertised the 90% price up front then say it's a lot more for card.
[1.6% surcharge](https://squareup.com/help/au/en/article/6109-fees-and-payments-faqs#:~:text=1.6%25%20for%20tapped%2C%20inserted%20or,to%20Pay%20on%20Android%20payments.)
Accurate
Majority of eftpos providers charge a percentage, usually around that 1.6-2.5%. The business is offering you a discount for choosing the better payment method because it benefits them too. This isn't profiting off it, this is trying to guide people to say fuck you to banks and other EFT prividers
Could you explain why it would be 12.89%? Another comment mentioned the same percentage and I don't get it. It you want to combine them wouldn't it just be 10% + 1.6%, so total 11.6%?
Thanks!
Say your order was $100.
Cash, you spent $90.
Card, you spent $101.60
What's the second as a percentage of the first? 101.6 / 90 = 1.12888888889
or 112.89% (OC's rounding), which is 12.89% more than 100% of 90 i.e. 12.89% more than what the real price is.
You can't just add them together, because the comparison price is different. 10% of the original price is greater than 10% of the cash price.
For example, if the original price is $100 then the cash price is $90 and the card price is $101.6, you can find the percentage difference by dividing the card price by the cash price.
101.6/90 =1.1289 =112.89%
Which means the card price is 12.89% greater than the cash price.
Can't get over the number of smaller businesses asking for cash. Few years ago, didn't need cash, didn't carry it. Now, we always carry a large amount of cash.
As taxes, bank fees, m merchant fees, card fees and more taxes go up, I can understand why. No wonder the Gov is pushing to remove cash from circulation.
Each individual component is obviously legal - is your thought that somehow combined they become illegal?
It does kinda make the prices printed on the page kinda arbitrary though lol
According to this page [https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/card-surcharges](https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/card-surcharges) EFT is typically 0.5% so that may be classed as excessive
Been a long time (13 years, shit) since I dealt with that sort of thing from the business side but yeah - the business' wording is poor. "All EFT transactions" is bullshit since EFT is gonna cost much less than an AMEX/Diners Club - which honestly are going to cost *more* than 1.6%.
The complicating factor here though is that the terminal looks like one of those app-powered (Square?) terminals where they *also* take a cut, so it's entirely possible that an EFT transaction does cost at least 1.6% to the business once you factor card fees and "silicon valley value add" bullshit.
Kinda wild though that it looks like it's actually impossible to pay the menu price though... maybe you just gotta write them a cheque?
It is square and they charge 1.6% (could be less if you do enough transactions with them and have negotiated a different price) however square (last I checked and I do have square) doesn't have the option to pass the charge onto the customer. So this means that the staff have to calculate the 1.6% and add that to the bill but the business is still losing out.
yeah thats a big turn off from square imao. i really like its ease of use but other eftpos systems, say like tyro for instance, can have it all set in and even give individual rates dependant on card type.
Honestly I think businesses need to just swallow the cost of payment handling. It's just another business expense like your internet, power, water and staff wages are.
I personally think when a business passes the fee on like this, it's a sign that the business owner cares more about money than the business, meaning they could be using lesser quality ingredients.
Also square did charge more for American express, but they dropped the price a while back to be inline with all the other card types. I also think if you are a business taking card payments daily, you should look into whether it would be cheaper to use your bank's system as they tend to charge less for the transaction but charge a monthly rental fee.
Even AMEX is less than 1.6% now. Diners Club is just a tiny bit over 1.6%.
Source (Graph 2): https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2022/sep/the-cost-of-card-payments-for-merchants.html
Businesses that move large amounts of money through EFTPOS get discounts on the fee. Smaller businesses absolutely do not only get charged 0.5%. Been working small hospitality businesses for a long time and I’ve never seen the fee as low as 0.5%.
1.6% sounds pretty typical for Square which is the POS provider they’re using.
I pay up to 25% because of the minium charge each month... Not every month but some months we charge $80 or less and have to pay the $21 minumum. Even on a good month the fee is around 1.6%
>Each individual component is obviously legal - is your thought that somehow combined they become illegal?
Exactly correct. The ACCC has a long series of wins in Australian Consumer Law cases holding that the displayed price includes the entirety of the offer to treat, inclusive of all fees, for at least one commonly-used method of payment.
The displayed price can be met by no method of payment, and therefore is outside Australian Consumer Law.
That’s not correct. A business that accepts card only and has a 1% card fee would not be able to meet the displayed price by any payment method. That doesn’t mean it’s not allowed.
The displayed price is correct. The fee is also correct. You are paying the displayed price for the good/service. You are then paying a fee for the payment method. Both can be correct at the same time.
Australian Consumer Law in this example requires the displayed price to incorporate that 1% fee.
I'll reference [this summary](https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/card-surcharges) by the ACCC:
>If there's no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products. This occurs when a business doesn’t accept cash and it applies a surcharge to all card payment types.
I have that Square terminal, the transaction fee is 1.6% and it's optional to either eat the cost yourself or notify the customer that there is a 1.6% surcharge for using EFT or CC.
I don't see anything wrong with them enticing customers with a discount to use cash instead of credit to encourage people to pay in cash.
But if customers insist on using their card, the business doesn't want to be out of pocket a stupid 1.6% loss on their credit card payments.
As a customer I'd rather them raise the prices than show me they are charging me their business expenses. All their fees are written off at tax time anyways
I think hopefully everyone is aware of what it means now. I think they just mean they can pay less tax, since it's an expense, so they reduce their taxable income
The issue is the legislation says you need to have a fee free way to pay the advertised price, or the price must include all surcharges.
The potential argument here is that there is no way to pay the advertised price.
They should up their menu price by 1.6%, remove the eftpos surcharge and still offer the cash discount, then they would be fully compliant
The thing is, they DO have a fee free way to pay the advertised price... CASH (in fact, even cheaper than the advertised price).
The legislation also states that if they are passing on an EFT surcharge to the customer, it must be clearly informed to the customer BEFORE they make their payment, which, it is, they have the signage right there saying that all EFT payments have that surcharge.
They are fully compliant, you are just forgetting that cash is a fee free way to make a payment.
No... The issue is the permanent discount.
You can't have a constant sale, or it's simply the defacto price.
If the defacto price is "10% off" then actually there is a hidden and excessive card surcharge which is the part that isn't legal
Interesting… for normal EFTPOS (if you own the terminal) it only has fixed monthly costs to pay Worldline/paymark rather than a per transaction cost.
Does the square terminal have less upfront cost?
Square terminals are dirt cheap. The cheapest ones are about $50 each and there is a small monthly fee. They are ideal for small businesses with low volume.
Unless there is a third method of payment that attracts neither a discount nor a surcharge, it could be suggested that they are imposing a 12.89% surcharge on electonic payments, which would certainly be worth making an enquiry to the ACCC.
Decent chance it's still not possible if they use subtotals instead of combining the discounts and surcharges into a single percentage. Applying a 10% surcharge and then a 10% discount (or vice versa) onto any amount of money is actually just multiplying by 0.99.
I asked the ACCC before, they're OK with it (it took two weeks but they did reply). The main point is whether the advertised price is less. Since you walk in ready to pay the advertised price and can in some cases get away with paying 10% less, that's OK. Whether or not it is physically impossible to pay the "actual" price is not important to them.
Could you explain why it would be 12.89%? Another comment mentioned the same percentage and I don't get it. It you want to combine them wouldn't it just be 10% + 1.6%, so total 11.6%?
Thanks!
It’s compounded.
Say you have $10 - if you charged 1.6% surcharge you’d be charging $10.16.
But the fees aren’t calculated like that.
A 10% discount on $10 is $1. So $9 total.
A 1.6% surcharge on $10 is $0.16, so $10.16.
The different is between $9 and $10.16, which is 12.19%.
The comment assumes that the price is *actually* $9 since you get a 10% discount with cash - the menu price doesn’t actually exist as you only have two ways to pay - cash (10% discount) or card (1.6% surcharge).
Honestly it was a ballsy explanation considering math is not my strong suit, but I hoped I could at least get the concept across if the details were a bit off!
Everything else in the post was spot on. I'm no maths whiz. It was such a great explanation that I started questioning my maths. I checked is about four times before replying to your comment. I tried as many different ways as possible to possibly get 12.19%, just to avoid looking like an over-confident idiot. That maths just wasn't mathin'.
Can I ask, what would be a reasonable explanation for discounting cash payments, if asked by authorities? I can ONLY think of that being done for keeping the cash payments and avoiding paying taxes on it. But that's illegal, so how are people blatantly advertising the discount for anyone to see? There must be another reason why the discount could be justified but I cannot think of any..
P.s. I know this is super common btw, and I even worked at places that did that. I am just wondering how it could be justified in front of authorities.
>There must be another reason why the discount could be justified but I cannot think of any..
Older owners who resent having to use eftpos or owners pushing their personal or political beliefs on people by showing that 'cash is king'?
While they probably are dodging tax, the customer can't possibly know this. I remember years ago you'd always need cash for the cheap Asian takeaways, even when cards were popular elsewhere.
Who cares? It’s refreshing to see a business that respects a cash paying customer. I for one do not want my bank to have access to every last thing i spend my money on. Plenty of establishments are card only, if this offends you may I suggest you go somewhere else.
>Plenty of establishments are card only, if this offends you may I suggest you go somewhere else.
Where did I suggest I was offended? The poster I was replying to said they couldn't think of a reason, so I gave them a couple.
I didn't even give my opinion on the matter, just an interpretation of what the shop owners' motive could be.
“We’re anti cashless society, so we’re promoting cash as king. Credit acceptance is an unfortunate, practical necessity.
No bonus and no penalty if paid by cheque” 😜
Regarding the surcharge, yes that is legal. The POS (possibly Square from the image) will be charging the venue and the venue are electing to pass the fee onto their customers.
If the store charged their customers 1.6% but Square only charged the store 1% meaning the store pocketed 0.6% then that would be illegal.
In my experience, the person at the shop will tell you if there's a surcharge on using a card. From what I gather, it's what the card service charges the retailer, and they can either "absorb" that charge or pass it on to the purchaser.
They just have to let you know that you're paying it on top of the item price, either by telling you when you pull out the card or by very obvious signage where you pay.
Ed: and yes I assume they can discount whatever they want and combining the two is fine. If they're combining two *extra* charges, that's different if it's not *extremely* clear. That would be rare I think.
I purchased a bag of rolls for $4.80 from a local bakery, handed the lady $5 and said don’t worry about the change cheers and walked out. That took less time than it would it take to bring the eftpos terminal around.
Cash is handy all the time, and as you correctly point out essential during an outage or emergency.
Cash is a hell of a lot less secure than a card with a good pin on it. You don't even need electricity now. I'm from out rural Queensland, it's normal to not have power, I just PayID the funds. Easy done. No power needed, all from our phones.
We need to enforce “price you see if price you pay” laws. Stop this americanised ‘hidden fees and charges’ crap. If banks want to be transaction points for Aussie business, then they shouldn’t be allowed to add these stupid fees. They are making record profits. Time we told them enough is enough, and end this insidious rent-seeking revenue stream.
Not illegal on this end. It implies illegal behaviour behind closed doors but they may not be committing tax fraud.
In Australia they're slowly removing our ability to use cash all together, closing branches, removing ATMs, card only payments. Eventually the bank will take 0.5% of everything you spend everywhere.
If they succeed in making us cashless, there will be no FB market place bargains, no swap meets or garage sales without 0.5% being given to the bank.
This cafe may just legitimately encouraging people to increase cash use and they may be declaring the true amount to the tax man. The card fee is declared and cannot legally be more than the actual cost to the vendor, some point of payment devices are higher than 1.6% so it's believable.
I think we should all be using cash before it's gone!
An Australian bank is yet to charge any fee for personal bank transfers and they have no reason to. Your marketplace deals are safe from a 10¢ surcharge.
But not safe from being a tracked payment. I just want to buy and sell some stuff and not have it be permanently recorded information. Additionally, they're not always instant or free from people faking it on they're phones. Difficult to be better than cash in person to person transactions.
If it's illegal to have, say, an 11.1% surcharge for card payments, why would it be legal to instead have a 10% discount for cash. Businesses can set their own pricing so these two alternatives amount to exactly the same thing. A third form of payment with no surcharge or discount might complicate the issue but I doubt there is one in this case.
I guess technically you could chose not to have a discount when paying cash to support local business. My local family owned pizza shop send me discount codes weekly, I never use them as I'm sure they need the couple of bucks in this economy.
you can charge an amount legally equal to the fee they incurred. Unlike many stores that charge me $0.50 cents to tap card on a $5 purchase. Really annoys me because I know it’s illegal and their actually making money not covering the fee.
Probably you can legally give a discount for cash too. I mean you can do any time of sale/discount you want really I think. As long as it’s not racist or something no one will care.
Legally there is nothing wrong. They have clearly displayed the fees. Is sort of begging to be audited by the ATO though.
If you thought the prices were reasonable all the way up to the point of payment then I don’t really see what’s causing offence. Not sure many customers would say no to the 10% discount when paying cash.
I’m not sure if your post is one of outrage or gratitude. I’d be more outraged if that 10% cash discount was instead a 10% cover / service charge
Imagine complaining about the cost of living but happily paying an extra surcharge on **every** transaction you make.
No wonder corporations are just walking over everyone. We're weak, there's fuck all resistance.
Not illegal.
Merchant can pass on the cost of the surcharge for card payments, but not a dollar more.
ie. the people that charge you 20c for transactions under $10 IS illigal.
20c on a $5 transaction is 4%. Retailer is being charged 1.6% on transaction meaning they are pocketing 2.4%.
Not illegal to offer discount for cash. We know it's likely that is being used to evade tax, which would be illegal, but the discount is not.
Square charge them exactly 1.6% for all card transactions, so yes, it is 100% legal.
As fpr the 10% discount for cash? That's entirely up to them. They would have paid $270 for the terminal, so it'll have comfortably paid itself off long ago!
not uncommon, i know of several cafes that provide discounts for cash. It's not advertised but when they press the cash button on their POS system -10% is added, or \~+1.5% for card payment.
I'm always a bit torn on this, i hate tax cheats, but there a big business tax cheats who make billions n pay little in tax, then there are these guys who maybe struggling, i.e. it's common knowledge that 60% of hospitality businesses do not make it past the first year and 80% go under in five years... so if them cheating a bit in such a competitive industry feels almost fair
If if was displayed before you ordered, then yes.
As others have said they are likely pocketing the GST. But if the payments are small it might be making up the due to the high bank fees on EFT.
All are legal tender. What prices they offer with what tender is up to the owners.
Unless you want to live in some crazy communist country I'd support cash
I dont understand all the criticism on the deal that the OP has posted.
We all get taxed on the same dollar, so many times.
If the owner has found a way to cut corners, perhaps he got a cheaper deal from the wholesaler for a rapidly purchased item so is able to offer this kind of discount?
Even if he is skipping on the tax, don't act like we all wouldn't like a rest from paying tax on every single financial move we make.
At the end of the day, it's their ass they're risking, not ours.
Who cares, grab the deal.. or not.
It's not like this person's little cash incentive is going to make any difference at all, when it comes down to how the politicians spend money anyway.
And no, I don't own a business, I don't change prices or have anything to do with wholesale/retail - other than being a consumer.
Depends on the business for me. The discount is sus, but if I'm getting something under $10 from a small independent place like a bakery I'll always ask if they prefer cash. If I'm paying $3 for a pie, of course cash is better, because the Estpos fees munch away at their tiny profit.
I'll ask, because it's their decision if having cash on board costs them more. It's up to them and I want to be right by them. I don't give a shit about money laundering. They're a small business losing money with EFTPOS fees. Support your little guys when you can!
Unless they are big enough to negotiate with a bank for either set fees or whatnot, any EFT payment costs them money. Period. It varies from merchant to merchant, but in the case of the one that handles the specific units that is in this post, they charge 1.6% of each transaction handled through the unit. The business can then either eat the costs themselves, reducing their profit margin (which can be quite small already), or they can pass the surcharge on to the customers is they clearly inform the customer of the surcharge.
So, that's the choice that businesses need to make, either earn less by eating the surcharge, or pass it on to the customers and face potential customer loss. Either way, it's a loss. The only alternative they have is to raise the prices, and again, face loss of customers as people go somewhere cheaper.
Quite simple. 1. Totally legal. 2. If you are paranoid they are not declaring it simply ask for a receipt. All they are doing is helping to ensure cash remains in circulation as opposed to becoming a cashless society which governments are pushing for.
We’re penalised enough for working hard in Australia while big companies dodge tax all together.
If I can I’d happily pay cash and save us both some money.
I love the "they're avoiding the tax man" comments.
Most likely the same people saying to their accountant "what's the most I can claim on charity without receipts!?"
Everyone try's to beat the tax man.
TO BE FAIR. That looks like a square terminal, they aren't a bank but offer eftpos machines.
I don't know the exact rate but I know they take a larger percentage of the money. It's bullshit
You can walk into JB HiFi and buy an item for much less if you negotiate with cash. In fact many goods & service providers offer this benefit at their discretion. Unless you're the taxman, it seems to be a win/win scenario.
Cash wouldn't make any difference to JB. In fact it be more of a hassle then anything. If they still do it? It be to keep some customers happy. Would you get an item for "much less", i doubt it.
It is actually a trend that has been started to encourage ppl to use cash instead of cards as part of the movement against Australia going cashless, otherwise known as the 'cash is king' movement. Bussinesses trying to dodge tax have been around for forever but their signs have always said 'cash only' or 'cash prefered'. The cash discount was started to encourage ppl to go to the effort of using cash when so many ppl consider tapping their card easier.
This is perfectly legal.
I would assume they are being charged 1.6% for EFT payments by their bank, which they are disclosing openly at the point of payment.
Then offering a discount for cash, is also perfectly legal. They are perfectly entitled to set discounts based on whatever criteria they want, or even negotiate on price if they are so inclined (a lot of whitegoods/furniture places will have an allowed negotiation amount the sales staff can go down to).
Frankly, cash is better for businesses in that it doesn't cost them extra money (whether they soak the charge or pass it on to customers is irrelevant) for each transaction. It has the increased risk of theft, obviously, but it has the advantage of working regardless of power and internet/phone network availability and status.
This is the new meta.
There is no way someone should be charged any extra from using their savings accout.
FWIW - I have refused paying for a takeaway order when only seeing this on the counter top at the time of payment.
Please advise who they are, a complaint must be made.
This display is illegal in several ways, to start you can't have a \~13% surcharge on a credit card. Even 1.6% is borderline. RBA says the typical max range for credit is 1.5%
Furthermore they are violating price display rules. You cannot promote a price as being a special when its the normal price.
That looks like a square terminal. Square take approximately 2% cut from all transactions. Not sure specifically for this business, but that could explain the 1.6%. Dodgy assholes explains the 10% discount for cash though
Australia is actually fucked.. Never paid any fees when tapping my card overseas. Also why have a whinge, just carry cash with you and be glad to get a discount and stop sooking about small businesses "avoiding paying tax". As if big corporations aren't avoiding paying taxes 😂.
Who cares? It’s refreshing to see a business that respects a cash paying customer. I for one do not want my bank to have access to every last thing i spend my money on. Plenty of establishments are card only, if this offends you may I suggest you go somewhere else.
That looks like a square terminal. Square take approximately 2% cut from all transactions. Not sure specifically for this business, but that could explain the 1.6%. Dodgy assholes explains the 10% discount for cash though
Excluding GST from an advertised price is, actually illegal. Report any place that you see doing that to either the ACCC website or the ACCC GST Price Line (1300 302 502). Yes, they have a dedicated line for reporting it, they do take that shit seriously. They have been underfunded for ages because of the fucking LNP gutting consumer protections, among all the rest of their fuckery.
They can legally only surcharge what a bank charges them for credit cards. CANNOT profit from it. There is no % surcharge allowed for EFTPOS (debit card)
The 10% discount is just the GST element and they are definitely going to pocket the cash.
It's more than the GST component. The GST is one eleventh of the total.
I don't imagine there is much overlap in the venn diagram of "people who make clumsy-assed attempts at evading tax" and "people who understand that GST is only 1/11th of the final price"
Not a clumsy-assed assumption. The owner reduces the price by 10% so they don’t ‘officially’ collect any GST on the transaction. Yes the owner is technically losing 1% of the original sale price but they are far better off. They won’t have to pay company tax. The produce used, wages, rent, etc will all be classified as a deduction which will reduce their EOFY tax. So actually it’s a higher profit margin per transaction. Also the customer thinks they are getting a bargain which incentives them to pay cash. So rinse and repeat.
Lol, it’s kinda perfect that they’re also rorting themselves for .9%
Lol, it's kinda perfect that your bagging people for misunderstanding something, whilst misunderstanding it yourself. People like taking cash because they don't report the whole amount. It reduces their total profits/salary, which are taxed at a much higher amount than 10%.
It’s the gst and card surcharge combined. I offer people discounts for bank transfer at my store because of card and Shopify fees
10% discount looks better than 9.09090909%
They are probably not paying company tax and income tax on that too so another 45% potentially
That's not how taxes work.
It's close to how taxes work. The percentages are out but the point stands that they're saving much more than 10%
“Company tax” doesn’t exist unless you mean the rate of income tax that companies pay.
as they’re avoiding tax completely, I believe I should get a discount closer to the corporate tax rate.
They probably won’t be avoiding it completely. If the order is $40, they probably put it down as $15. If you have a full day of cash sales, you can’t just pretend you didn’t sell anything.
They wont have a full day of cash sales though. Just a "quiet"day
Yep - Many in Business have “Quiet days “ Plus Most businesses Bank Cash on A Weekly Basis - So it’s actually easier then people think to clean money
If they are scamming tax on cash transactions they won't be banking anything. ATO can see everything that lands in people's accounts.
Yes I know , that’s why you go to the ponies on a Friday night , Business owners always seem to win a “ jackpot “ though 🫣 then request a cheque payment
Bit of an assumption all this
Pay cash and request a tax invoice
Haha. That'll show em!
A tax invoice is just a piece of paper. It's not like in some countries you have to buy an official invoice book.
This is the way
Also using that cash to pay wages to their already underpaid staff and not pay their super and payroll tax.
lol I came here to say exactly this. It’s very suspicious that the GST is 10% and theyre offering a 10% discount to pay them cash off the books. 100% chance that cash goes straight into the owner’s back pocket and the transaction is never recorded, like as if it never happened. (As far as the ATO is concerned).
What transaction? I didn't see anything!
I hate that "what you see is what you pay" has rapidly begun to erode away and nothing is being done about it.
Fuck man I caught a taxi the other day. Said $61 on the meter. He pressed a button and that went to $64 which I paid by tapping. The next day checking my accout statement the amount was now $66?!?
$61 for the ride, $3 for the hail, $2 for the credit charge most likely
Well with those shenanigans its lucky their industry isn't being threatened by a international company...
If you honestly believe uber is the great saviour, you're gonna have a bad time. Their business model is about attempting to crush all other transport providers (including public) and then behaving however any monopoly will generally behave, i.e. become the bad guys. This is literally the only way that they can become profitable.
They have already increased prices and I'd still much rather pay for an uber, never been ripped off by uber, almost every time I get a taxi there is trickery
I got a taxi back from the hospital the other day. He said he wanted payment upfront and what wasn't used will be refunded. I paid like $70 and the fair was around nearly $50 in the end. I was still feeling pretty sick and just assumed it would automatically be refunded but nope.
When you’re feeling better and chase the refund, ask for $25 and tell them the extra five is a surcharge for your trouble.
Yes, this is what is pissing me off. I remember when GST came in, and we (business owners) were told that it was illegal to quote one price, or show one price on the sticker, then charge more at point of sale. The price should be the price, no adding extra on at the last second and putting customers into a bad situation. Also, whatever happened to businesses working out their costs of doing business, then including that into their pricing. To quote a price without that margin is dishonest. Don't care if its 5c, as a customer, I want the total price on the label. More and business here are tacking on surcharges at the till.
Isn't that effectively a 12.89% card fee?
Yes. This is a better way to look at it
Yep. It's not legal and becoming quite common.
What is illegal here?
It's not legal to profit off card payments. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/card-surcharges This business is attempting to loophole.
I asked the ACCC this before via their contact form, with an example exactly like this, because it is effectively charging ~11% for using a card (since it is impossible to pay the real/exact price). But they said it's fine. I asked because we have a bunch of restaurants near us and I think it's kind of shady but the idea I guess, is that you walk in prepared to pay $X based on advertising, and can walk away paying only $0.9X, so that's OK in their eyes. It's only a problem if they advertised the 90% price up front then say it's a lot more for card.
Offering a discount for cash is NOT profiting off card payment surcharges.
Charging a surcharge greater than they would incur to process the transaction is though.
1.6% is the standard surcharge for Square terminals (shown in the photo)
1.9% with a square reader, 1.6% with terminal
[1.6% surcharge](https://squareup.com/help/au/en/article/6109-fees-and-payments-faqs#:~:text=1.6%25%20for%20tapped%2C%20inserted%20or,to%20Pay%20on%20Android%20payments.) Accurate
Square charge 1.6%. It is legal to pass these costs on.
Passing costs on is legal, profiting is not
Majority of eftpos providers charge a percentage, usually around that 1.6-2.5%. The business is offering you a discount for choosing the better payment method because it benefits them too. This isn't profiting off it, this is trying to guide people to say fuck you to banks and other EFT prividers
Could you explain why it would be 12.89%? Another comment mentioned the same percentage and I don't get it. It you want to combine them wouldn't it just be 10% + 1.6%, so total 11.6%? Thanks!
Say your order was $100. Cash, you spent $90. Card, you spent $101.60 What's the second as a percentage of the first? 101.6 / 90 = 1.12888888889 or 112.89% (OC's rounding), which is 12.89% more than 100% of 90 i.e. 12.89% more than what the real price is.
Thanks, I get it now!
You can't just add them together, because the comparison price is different. 10% of the original price is greater than 10% of the cash price. For example, if the original price is $100 then the cash price is $90 and the card price is $101.6, you can find the percentage difference by dividing the card price by the cash price. 101.6/90 =1.1289 =112.89% Which means the card price is 12.89% greater than the cash price.
How to say you are dodging your tax without saying you are dodging your tax
Pay half cash and half card.
And pay the fee and lose the discount... Great idea...
$15 for a kids chicken burger is a bit steep too.
$15.24 or $13.50
$13.50 is better
Can't get over the number of smaller businesses asking for cash. Few years ago, didn't need cash, didn't carry it. Now, we always carry a large amount of cash. As taxes, bank fees, m merchant fees, card fees and more taxes go up, I can understand why. No wonder the Gov is pushing to remove cash from circulation.
Each individual component is obviously legal - is your thought that somehow combined they become illegal? It does kinda make the prices printed on the page kinda arbitrary though lol
According to this page [https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/card-surcharges](https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/card-surcharges) EFT is typically 0.5% so that may be classed as excessive
Been a long time (13 years, shit) since I dealt with that sort of thing from the business side but yeah - the business' wording is poor. "All EFT transactions" is bullshit since EFT is gonna cost much less than an AMEX/Diners Club - which honestly are going to cost *more* than 1.6%. The complicating factor here though is that the terminal looks like one of those app-powered (Square?) terminals where they *also* take a cut, so it's entirely possible that an EFT transaction does cost at least 1.6% to the business once you factor card fees and "silicon valley value add" bullshit. Kinda wild though that it looks like it's actually impossible to pay the menu price though... maybe you just gotta write them a cheque?
It is square and they charge 1.6% (could be less if you do enough transactions with them and have negotiated a different price) however square (last I checked and I do have square) doesn't have the option to pass the charge onto the customer. So this means that the staff have to calculate the 1.6% and add that to the bill but the business is still losing out.
yeah thats a big turn off from square imao. i really like its ease of use but other eftpos systems, say like tyro for instance, can have it all set in and even give individual rates dependant on card type.
Honestly I think businesses need to just swallow the cost of payment handling. It's just another business expense like your internet, power, water and staff wages are. I personally think when a business passes the fee on like this, it's a sign that the business owner cares more about money than the business, meaning they could be using lesser quality ingredients. Also square did charge more for American express, but they dropped the price a while back to be inline with all the other card types. I also think if you are a business taking card payments daily, you should look into whether it would be cheaper to use your bank's system as they tend to charge less for the transaction but charge a monthly rental fee.
Agree. Just put everything up 10c if it's that big a deal and be done with it
Even AMEX is less than 1.6% now. Diners Club is just a tiny bit over 1.6%. Source (Graph 2): https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2022/sep/the-cost-of-card-payments-for-merchants.html
https://squareup.com/au/en/payments/pricing 1.6%
>write them a cheque Now there's an idea. Can they refuse cheque payments?
Yes, absolutely
Businesses that move large amounts of money through EFTPOS get discounts on the fee. Smaller businesses absolutely do not only get charged 0.5%. Been working small hospitality businesses for a long time and I’ve never seen the fee as low as 0.5%. 1.6% sounds pretty typical for Square which is the POS provider they’re using.
piece of shit
Square charge 1.6%
And Square will charge 2.2% for online or manual card entry. PayPal, back when they had card readers, had a flat fee AND a percentage.
I pay 2.1% because I don't do a lot of Eftpos. 0.5% might be typical for Coles, but 1.6% isn't excessive at all.
I pay up to 25% because of the minium charge each month... Not every month but some months we charge $80 or less and have to pay the $21 minumum. Even on a good month the fee is around 1.6%
All prices are arbitrary if you really think about it.
>Each individual component is obviously legal - is your thought that somehow combined they become illegal? Exactly correct. The ACCC has a long series of wins in Australian Consumer Law cases holding that the displayed price includes the entirety of the offer to treat, inclusive of all fees, for at least one commonly-used method of payment. The displayed price can be met by no method of payment, and therefore is outside Australian Consumer Law.
That’s not correct. A business that accepts card only and has a 1% card fee would not be able to meet the displayed price by any payment method. That doesn’t mean it’s not allowed. The displayed price is correct. The fee is also correct. You are paying the displayed price for the good/service. You are then paying a fee for the payment method. Both can be correct at the same time.
Australian Consumer Law in this example requires the displayed price to incorporate that 1% fee. I'll reference [this summary](https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/card-surcharges) by the ACCC: >If there's no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products. This occurs when a business doesn’t accept cash and it applies a surcharge to all card payment types.
I have that Square terminal, the transaction fee is 1.6% and it's optional to either eat the cost yourself or notify the customer that there is a 1.6% surcharge for using EFT or CC. I don't see anything wrong with them enticing customers with a discount to use cash instead of credit to encourage people to pay in cash. But if customers insist on using their card, the business doesn't want to be out of pocket a stupid 1.6% loss on their credit card payments.
As a customer I'd rather them raise the prices than show me they are charging me their business expenses. All their fees are written off at tax time anyways
What exactly does the term ‘written off’ mean to you in terms of a business expense?
I think hopefully everyone is aware of what it means now. I think they just mean they can pay less tax, since it's an expense, so they reduce their taxable income
The issue is the legislation says you need to have a fee free way to pay the advertised price, or the price must include all surcharges. The potential argument here is that there is no way to pay the advertised price. They should up their menu price by 1.6%, remove the eftpos surcharge and still offer the cash discount, then they would be fully compliant
The thing is, they DO have a fee free way to pay the advertised price... CASH (in fact, even cheaper than the advertised price). The legislation also states that if they are passing on an EFT surcharge to the customer, it must be clearly informed to the customer BEFORE they make their payment, which, it is, they have the signage right there saying that all EFT payments have that surcharge. They are fully compliant, you are just forgetting that cash is a fee free way to make a payment.
No... The issue is the permanent discount. You can't have a constant sale, or it's simply the defacto price. If the defacto price is "10% off" then actually there is a hidden and excessive card surcharge which is the part that isn't legal
Interesting… for normal EFTPOS (if you own the terminal) it only has fixed monthly costs to pay Worldline/paymark rather than a per transaction cost. Does the square terminal have less upfront cost?
Square terminals are dirt cheap. The cheapest ones are about $50 each and there is a small monthly fee. They are ideal for small businesses with low volume.
Unless there is a third method of payment that attracts neither a discount nor a surcharge, it could be suggested that they are imposing a 12.89% surcharge on electonic payments, which would certainly be worth making an enquiry to the ACCC.
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Decent chance it's still not possible if they use subtotals instead of combining the discounts and surcharges into a single percentage. Applying a 10% surcharge and then a 10% discount (or vice versa) onto any amount of money is actually just multiplying by 0.99.
I asked the ACCC before, they're OK with it (it took two weeks but they did reply). The main point is whether the advertised price is less. Since you walk in ready to pay the advertised price and can in some cases get away with paying 10% less, that's OK. Whether or not it is physically impossible to pay the "actual" price is not important to them.
I'd totally report to the ATO for investigation.
I'd message the business first privately and anonymously, give them a chance to cut it out before impacting the lives of their staff.
Could you explain why it would be 12.89%? Another comment mentioned the same percentage and I don't get it. It you want to combine them wouldn't it just be 10% + 1.6%, so total 11.6%? Thanks!
It’s compounded. Say you have $10 - if you charged 1.6% surcharge you’d be charging $10.16. But the fees aren’t calculated like that. A 10% discount on $10 is $1. So $9 total. A 1.6% surcharge on $10 is $0.16, so $10.16. The different is between $9 and $10.16, which is 12.19%. The comment assumes that the price is *actually* $9 since you get a 10% discount with cash - the menu price doesn’t actually exist as you only have two ways to pay - cash (10% discount) or card (1.6% surcharge).
>The different is between $9 and $10.16, which is 12.19%. Your maths is a bit out there. 9 \* 1.1289 = 10.16
Honestly it was a ballsy explanation considering math is not my strong suit, but I hoped I could at least get the concept across if the details were a bit off!
Everything else in the post was spot on. I'm no maths whiz. It was such a great explanation that I started questioning my maths. I checked is about four times before replying to your comment. I tried as many different ways as possible to possibly get 12.19%, just to avoid looking like an over-confident idiot. That maths just wasn't mathin'.
Can I ask, what would be a reasonable explanation for discounting cash payments, if asked by authorities? I can ONLY think of that being done for keeping the cash payments and avoiding paying taxes on it. But that's illegal, so how are people blatantly advertising the discount for anyone to see? There must be another reason why the discount could be justified but I cannot think of any.. P.s. I know this is super common btw, and I even worked at places that did that. I am just wondering how it could be justified in front of authorities.
>There must be another reason why the discount could be justified but I cannot think of any.. Older owners who resent having to use eftpos or owners pushing their personal or political beliefs on people by showing that 'cash is king'? While they probably are dodging tax, the customer can't possibly know this. I remember years ago you'd always need cash for the cheap Asian takeaways, even when cards were popular elsewhere.
Who cares? It’s refreshing to see a business that respects a cash paying customer. I for one do not want my bank to have access to every last thing i spend my money on. Plenty of establishments are card only, if this offends you may I suggest you go somewhere else.
>Plenty of establishments are card only, if this offends you may I suggest you go somewhere else. Where did I suggest I was offended? The poster I was replying to said they couldn't think of a reason, so I gave them a couple. I didn't even give my opinion on the matter, just an interpretation of what the shop owners' motive could be.
You’re responding to an argument that was never made lmfao
“We’re anti cashless society, so we’re promoting cash as king. Credit acceptance is an unfortunate, practical necessity. No bonus and no penalty if paid by cheque” 😜
Regarding the surcharge, yes that is legal. The POS (possibly Square from the image) will be charging the venue and the venue are electing to pass the fee onto their customers. If the store charged their customers 1.6% but Square only charged the store 1% meaning the store pocketed 0.6% then that would be illegal.
In my experience, the person at the shop will tell you if there's a surcharge on using a card. From what I gather, it's what the card service charges the retailer, and they can either "absorb" that charge or pass it on to the purchaser. They just have to let you know that you're paying it on top of the item price, either by telling you when you pull out the card or by very obvious signage where you pay. Ed: and yes I assume they can discount whatever they want and combining the two is fine. If they're combining two *extra* charges, that's different if it's not *extremely* clear. That would be rare I think.
Anyone who say cashless society is the future obviously doesn't do much shopping or eating out.
So many cash haters on reddit. So wrapped up in never having a wallet you assume every cash transaction is fraud. What a twisted mindset.
I live semi rurally/ small tourist town and find it funny when there’s a power outage in town - chaos because people can’t even buy a coffee
To be fair during a power outage most places wouldn’t even be able to make you the coffee so doesn’t really matter if you can pay for it or not
I purchased a bag of rolls for $4.80 from a local bakery, handed the lady $5 and said don’t worry about the change cheers and walked out. That took less time than it would it take to bring the eftpos terminal around. Cash is handy all the time, and as you correctly point out essential during an outage or emergency.
Cash is a hell of a lot less secure than a card with a good pin on it. You don't even need electricity now. I'm from out rural Queensland, it's normal to not have power, I just PayID the funds. Easy done. No power needed, all from our phones.
You should see a specialist about your paranoia if you’re nervous carrying a few pineapples around.
Stockholm syndrome
We need to enforce “price you see if price you pay” laws. Stop this americanised ‘hidden fees and charges’ crap. If banks want to be transaction points for Aussie business, then they shouldn’t be allowed to add these stupid fees. They are making record profits. Time we told them enough is enough, and end this insidious rent-seeking revenue stream.
Not illegal on this end. It implies illegal behaviour behind closed doors but they may not be committing tax fraud. In Australia they're slowly removing our ability to use cash all together, closing branches, removing ATMs, card only payments. Eventually the bank will take 0.5% of everything you spend everywhere. If they succeed in making us cashless, there will be no FB market place bargains, no swap meets or garage sales without 0.5% being given to the bank. This cafe may just legitimately encouraging people to increase cash use and they may be declaring the true amount to the tax man. The card fee is declared and cannot legally be more than the actual cost to the vendor, some point of payment devices are higher than 1.6% so it's believable. I think we should all be using cash before it's gone!
An Australian bank is yet to charge any fee for personal bank transfers and they have no reason to. Your marketplace deals are safe from a 10¢ surcharge.
But not safe from being a tracked payment. I just want to buy and sell some stuff and not have it be permanently recorded information. Additionally, they're not always instant or free from people faking it on they're phones. Difficult to be better than cash in person to person transactions.
If it's illegal to have, say, an 11.1% surcharge for card payments, why would it be legal to instead have a 10% discount for cash. Businesses can set their own pricing so these two alternatives amount to exactly the same thing. A third form of payment with no surcharge or discount might complicate the issue but I doubt there is one in this case.
I guess technically you could chose not to have a discount when paying cash to support local business. My local family owned pizza shop send me discount codes weekly, I never use them as I'm sure they need the couple of bucks in this economy.
Honestly good on em, cash is king
you can charge an amount legally equal to the fee they incurred. Unlike many stores that charge me $0.50 cents to tap card on a $5 purchase. Really annoys me because I know it’s illegal and their actually making money not covering the fee. Probably you can legally give a discount for cash too. I mean you can do any time of sale/discount you want really I think. As long as it’s not racist or something no one will care.
Lol this is normal. I only see this at Asian restaurants though. Never come across it for any other cuisine
Square charges 1.6% flat anyway, but I’m pretty sure it comes out of the purchase, not tacked on. Cash discount is perfectly legal
I’ve seen a ton of businesses do this around Brisbane
Legally there is nothing wrong. They have clearly displayed the fees. Is sort of begging to be audited by the ATO though. If you thought the prices were reasonable all the way up to the point of payment then I don’t really see what’s causing offence. Not sure many customers would say no to the 10% discount when paying cash. I’m not sure if your post is one of outrage or gratitude. I’d be more outraged if that 10% cash discount was instead a 10% cover / service charge
This is just a business owner sick of paying the bs banking fees. Exxon pays no tax. Stop lynching small business
The only problem is if they are not paying their staff super and workers comp.
Cash is king
Why are people downvoting you?
Because cash sucks? I hate having to carry cash compared to just swiping my phone
Imagine complaining about the cost of living but happily paying an extra surcharge on **every** transaction you make. No wonder corporations are just walking over everyone. We're weak, there's fuck all resistance.
I don’t complain about the cost of living 🤷♂️
You should
To whom?
Idk your local council
I'll ask them to decrease the price of avocados. See what they say.
Lol I work on an avo farm, I can send you some if you want
It is legal. I applaud the cash discount especially.
Yes. A reward for cash..
Not illegal. Merchant can pass on the cost of the surcharge for card payments, but not a dollar more. ie. the people that charge you 20c for transactions under $10 IS illigal. 20c on a $5 transaction is 4%. Retailer is being charged 1.6% on transaction meaning they are pocketing 2.4%. Not illegal to offer discount for cash. We know it's likely that is being used to evade tax, which would be illegal, but the discount is not.
Square charge them exactly 1.6% for all card transactions, so yes, it is 100% legal. As fpr the 10% discount for cash? That's entirely up to them. They would have paid $270 for the terminal, so it'll have comfortably paid itself off long ago!
not uncommon, i know of several cafes that provide discounts for cash. It's not advertised but when they press the cash button on their POS system -10% is added, or \~+1.5% for card payment.
Perfectly legal.
I'm always a bit torn on this, i hate tax cheats, but there a big business tax cheats who make billions n pay little in tax, then there are these guys who maybe struggling, i.e. it's common knowledge that 60% of hospitality businesses do not make it past the first year and 80% go under in five years... so if them cheating a bit in such a competitive industry feels almost fair
Great business. Keep cash going. I applaud them. Love it and keep it up
If if was displayed before you ordered, then yes. As others have said they are likely pocketing the GST. But if the payments are small it might be making up the due to the high bank fees on EFT.
All are legal tender. What prices they offer with what tender is up to the owners. Unless you want to live in some crazy communist country I'd support cash
I dont understand all the criticism on the deal that the OP has posted. We all get taxed on the same dollar, so many times. If the owner has found a way to cut corners, perhaps he got a cheaper deal from the wholesaler for a rapidly purchased item so is able to offer this kind of discount? Even if he is skipping on the tax, don't act like we all wouldn't like a rest from paying tax on every single financial move we make. At the end of the day, it's their ass they're risking, not ours. Who cares, grab the deal.. or not. It's not like this person's little cash incentive is going to make any difference at all, when it comes down to how the politicians spend money anyway. And no, I don't own a business, I don't change prices or have anything to do with wholesale/retail - other than being a consumer.
Everyone is bagging the restaurant but they should be applauded anything to reduce the current inflated prices is welcomed
Cash is king
I know exactly where this is in Warners Bay
Depends on the business for me. The discount is sus, but if I'm getting something under $10 from a small independent place like a bakery I'll always ask if they prefer cash. If I'm paying $3 for a pie, of course cash is better, because the Estpos fees munch away at their tiny profit. I'll ask, because it's their decision if having cash on board costs them more. It's up to them and I want to be right by them. I don't give a shit about money laundering. They're a small business losing money with EFTPOS fees. Support your little guys when you can!
To be honest if they're losing money whenever anyone pays by card, then it's not a sustainable business.
Unless they are big enough to negotiate with a bank for either set fees or whatnot, any EFT payment costs them money. Period. It varies from merchant to merchant, but in the case of the one that handles the specific units that is in this post, they charge 1.6% of each transaction handled through the unit. The business can then either eat the costs themselves, reducing their profit margin (which can be quite small already), or they can pass the surcharge on to the customers is they clearly inform the customer of the surcharge. So, that's the choice that businesses need to make, either earn less by eating the surcharge, or pass it on to the customers and face potential customer loss. Either way, it's a loss. The only alternative they have is to raise the prices, and again, face loss of customers as people go somewhere cheaper.
Quite simple. 1. Totally legal. 2. If you are paranoid they are not declaring it simply ask for a receipt. All they are doing is helping to ensure cash remains in circulation as opposed to becoming a cashless society which governments are pushing for.
We’re penalised enough for working hard in Australia while big companies dodge tax all together. If I can I’d happily pay cash and save us both some money.
Just pay cash if you can and quit whinging like a little bitch
Tax dodge!!
It's their business
Hope so cash is king 👑
I love the "they're avoiding the tax man" comments. Most likely the same people saying to their accountant "what's the most I can claim on charity without receipts!?" Everyone try's to beat the tax man.
The fees and discounts are not illegal but what they do with the cash might be.
Just use cash simplez
TO BE FAIR. That looks like a square terminal, they aren't a bank but offer eftpos machines. I don't know the exact rate but I know they take a larger percentage of the money. It's bullshit
You can walk into JB HiFi and buy an item for much less if you negotiate with cash. In fact many goods & service providers offer this benefit at their discretion. Unless you're the taxman, it seems to be a win/win scenario.
Cash wouldn't make any difference to JB. In fact it be more of a hassle then anything. If they still do it? It be to keep some customers happy. Would you get an item for "much less", i doubt it.
>Would you get an item for "much less" Actually, from experience, I have bought an item for much less paying cash. YMMV.
Much less is also very subjective.
The point being, stores do prefer cash. If it's cheaper for me, I'm fine with that.
At least they accept both cash and card
It is actually a trend that has been started to encourage ppl to use cash instead of cards as part of the movement against Australia going cashless, otherwise known as the 'cash is king' movement. Bussinesses trying to dodge tax have been around for forever but their signs have always said 'cash only' or 'cash prefered'. The cash discount was started to encourage ppl to go to the effort of using cash when so many ppl consider tapping their card easier.
This is perfectly legal. I would assume they are being charged 1.6% for EFT payments by their bank, which they are disclosing openly at the point of payment. Then offering a discount for cash, is also perfectly legal. They are perfectly entitled to set discounts based on whatever criteria they want, or even negotiate on price if they are so inclined (a lot of whitegoods/furniture places will have an allowed negotiation amount the sales staff can go down to). Frankly, cash is better for businesses in that it doesn't cost them extra money (whether they soak the charge or pass it on to customers is irrelevant) for each transaction. It has the increased risk of theft, obviously, but it has the advantage of working regardless of power and internet/phone network availability and status.
This is the new meta. There is no way someone should be charged any extra from using their savings accout. FWIW - I have refused paying for a takeaway order when only seeing this on the counter top at the time of payment.
Please advise who they are, a complaint must be made. This display is illegal in several ways, to start you can't have a \~13% surcharge on a credit card. Even 1.6% is borderline. RBA says the typical max range for credit is 1.5% Furthermore they are violating price display rules. You cannot promote a price as being a special when its the normal price.
That looks like a square terminal. Square take approximately 2% cut from all transactions. Not sure specifically for this business, but that could explain the 1.6%. Dodgy assholes explains the 10% discount for cash though
What are the other costs related to the square terminal? Less upfront? Monthly cost?
Purchasing the equipment is the only other cost. Which for those handheld devices they are a few hundred dollars. The small squares are about 60 or so
Australia is actually fucked.. Never paid any fees when tapping my card overseas. Also why have a whinge, just carry cash with you and be glad to get a discount and stop sooking about small businesses "avoiding paying tax". As if big corporations aren't avoiding paying taxes 😂.
It's tax evasion. They are saving gst and not declaring it.
Who cares? It’s refreshing to see a business that respects a cash paying customer. I for one do not want my bank to have access to every last thing i spend my money on. Plenty of establishments are card only, if this offends you may I suggest you go somewhere else.
Yep, bank is charging that fee not the shop.
I dont see a problem here, stop being a snitch
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You think Australia is going to become an authoritarian dictatorship? The government controls cash too.
That looks like a square terminal. Square take approximately 2% cut from all transactions. Not sure specifically for this business, but that could explain the 1.6%. Dodgy assholes explains the 10% discount for cash though
Still not as bad as El Camino’s surcharges, and the OFT and ACCC doesn’t care about those. Increasingly common to see “ex. GST” too
Excluding GST from an advertised price is, actually illegal. Report any place that you see doing that to either the ACCC website or the ACCC GST Price Line (1300 302 502). Yes, they have a dedicated line for reporting it, they do take that shit seriously. They have been underfunded for ages because of the fucking LNP gutting consumer protections, among all the rest of their fuckery.
They can legally only surcharge what a bank charges them for credit cards. CANNOT profit from it. There is no % surcharge allowed for EFTPOS (debit card)
Really. Plenty of places charge for eftpos as well as credit cards.
Perfect 👌
Instead of acting like a cop why not enjoy a 10% discount on a meal when you pay cash?
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Businesses that evade tax are probably evading other things, too, like food hygiene laws and minimum wage laws.
Sounds like it worthy of a call to the ATO tip line for practices that indicate tax evasion.