For businesses cash is king. If you drained the blood out of your body, your cells would become starved of oxygen and they along with you would depart from this world. Cash is the lifeblood of any business and without it they cannot survive.

However, there is another side to cash which instead of being king, might for some be associated with corruption. Cash is a commodity capable of breeding suspicion.

Now I do not mean that any cash transaction is inherently suspicious, far from it, given it would be impractical to undertake all transactions electronically or by debit and credit card. Imagine turning up to buy the morning paper and saying to your local newsagent, do you take Mastercard – they’d rightly wonder what you were thinking.

However, it is the untraceable nature of many cash transactions which gives cash its unusual perception.

Remember Cash for Questions? Of course you do, its sticks out like a sore thumb. Brown envelopes allegedly given to Members of Parliament in exchange for questions. I have always wondered why brown envelopes are allegedly used to transfer cash between people. What is wrong with white ones?!

Does it however matter that cash can have this unhealthy perception. Well some of us would suggest that cash transactions above a certain level maybe inherently suspicious. For example whether or not as income all cash receipts in a business will be declared and taxed will be of concern to HRMC and those looking after the public purse.

Such cash transactions need to be carefully considered because if undeclared then the recipient is potentially opening themselves up to offences in light of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Furthermore, until the intended new Bribery Bill reaches the statute book, then the presumption of guilt set out in Section 2 of Prevention of Corruption Act 1916 still applies in relation to a person charged with corruption upon receipt of a cash gift. They will currently be unable to rely upon the presumption of innocence normally applicable to so-called fair trials.

So beware of cash!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 9:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.