The Treasury department quote cited only tells us that cash is “legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues”
So it doesn’t make sense that a public agency wouldn’t accept cash for a “debt”. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a gov’t agency that refused cash for a debt (as opposed to a “service”) Does anyone have a specific example?
The example above, where a motorist was cited for “failure to affix front license plate” sounds like a good one. I’m not sure about property taxes - I’m sure there are nearly as many policies as municipalities, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ll go check…
OK. This is for property taxes -
PAYMENT OPTIONS: TAXES MAY BE PAID BY VISA, MASTERCARD, DISCOVER OR ELECTRONIC CHECK ONLINE. MONTHLY AUTOMATIC WITHDRAWALS FROM YOUR CHECKING OR SAVINGS ACCOUNT ARE AVAILABLE BY CONTACTING THE TREASURERS OFFICE.
(snip)
I gather that if someone made enough noise, cash would be accepted, though it’s far from clear that this is possible from reading the above.
What is the legal definition of a debt? Several people in this thread seem to have the notion that as long as payment is made for a good or service immediately, it’s not a debt, but I don’t see any reason this has to be true from the dictionary definition of a debt, which is simply “something owed” (cite). So as soon as you agree to purchase a good or service, and the cashier asks you for your $42.75, at that point you owe him $42.75 (unless you cancel the transaction, which can be done even after the fact so I don’t think this would invalidate my point).
But in any case, it really only matters what the law says is a debt or not, so if anyone knows (I don’t even know where to look for something of that nature), that would be a nice contribution to the thread.
From a legal point of view, no. You approach the cash register with a single item. The cashier scans it and says “that’s $42.75, please.” You say “but I haven’t got any money.”
At this point, can the store sue you for $42.75? No. They still own the goods; title has not passed to you. It will only pass when you pay. At this point, you can still choose not to buy the goods (or, indeed, they can still choose not to sell them to you – “Sorry, this item should not have been put on the shelves until tomorrow morning. You can’t have it”).
There is no debt until you owe them money. In walking up to the cashier and presenting the item for charging, all you are doing is offering to buy it. They can refuse that offer, or you can withdraw it. There won’t be a debt until title to the goods passes, at which point (if they haven’’t been paid for) there will be a debt for the price of the goods. Since the implied term of a sale contract formed in a store in this way is that title passes when payment is made, there will never be a debt.
To be fair I noticed an additional notice on the local property tax assessment sheet:
“Payments may be deposited in the secured drop box, located in the parking lot at the southeast corner of the courthouse.”
Still, this doesn’t mention cash. And this area is partly rural, w/ undoubtedly some above average curmudgeonly types. In many ways I think that paying by check or online is better insofar as a receipt is automatically generated and less chance for theft, robbery, or mis-application of taxes could occur. But it does seem strange that “legal tender” would not be mentioned.
The point with the OP’s case is that the Clerk of Courts (?) is not set up to accept cash. (No way to safely store it, no one authorised (or certified) to transport large sums of cash, no local bank “account” that hard cash can be deposited to, etc.)
It’s cheaper for smaller court staff’s to mail (courier?) collected checks to a central office, and for electronic fund transfers (like charge cards).
You can try to raise a stink about them not accepting cash, but I assume that the such an effort is more trouble than it is worth. Your call, I guess.
If you are paying a traffic fine, does the ticket instruct you in where and how to pay?
I recently found the city of Waukesha, Wi. will not take cask for parking tickets. Check or credit card and want it sent to the city of milwaukee. Sounds like racketeering. They made me a debtor by issuing the ticket which was not a voluntary agreement, nor did I solicit their involvement as a vendor. This is clearly a debt, not a purchase and as you know they get nasty if you have not paid the ‘Debt to the Public’ . I need to pursue this as it is getting out of control.
I recommend writing a check.
If they won’t take a cask I suppose they have you over a barrel.
Our county assessor’s office also adds transaction fees to credit card payments. I’d love to know why they can do that when stores and gas stations are forbidden contractually from adding a fee for credit card users.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:31, topic:358842”]
Our county assessor’s office also adds transaction fees to credit card payments. I’d love to know why they can do that when stores and gas stations are forbidden contractually from adding a fee for credit card users.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve wondered about that myself. There seem to be specific exceptions to this, or a lot of law breaking going on.
My understanding is that:
[ol]
[li]There is no federal regulation preventing businesses from adding a surcharge for credit card use.[/li][li]In most states, there is also no such regulation, but…[/li][li]Visa and Mastercard generally prohibit doing that as part of the agreement that allows businesses to accept their cards.[/li][/ol]
I doubt it, because most of the gas stations around me have separate prices for credit versus cash/debit.
So long as credit card users aren’t charged more than the listed price, retailers can offer a cash discount. (Discover allows a transaction fee, but only if all credit card users are charged, which means that they’re banned in practice unless the retailer only accepts Discover.)
I’ve asked this in other threads, but we can’t seem to come up with a good answer.
So a store has an item on the shelf that is priced “$12 credit, $10 cash” Is this a legitimate cash discount or an impermissible credit card surcharge? What is the functional difference? Assume the store takes no other forms of payment (which is generally the case).
In all the news stories we read about the growing numbers of homeless or otherwise nouveau pauvre people, a fact often mentioned is the growing numbers of “unbanked” people, that is, who don’t have any kind of bank accounts.
How do they got on at all? That question is never addressed. How do they get their social security payments? Even if they get a paper check in the mail, where do they cash it? At a payday lender?
How would someone pay a traffic fine or any other kind of payment, if they don’t have a checking account or any credit cards, or a way to pay on-line, and those are the only payment forms accepted? Do they have to go to the post office and get a money order?
One very common side-effect I’m seeing is that more and more often people are required to pay in some form that comes with a service charge. Example: Many landlords demand that the very first rent payment from a new tenant, or the security deposit or the application fee, be paid with a money order, which costs the applicant extra. And that post above, that you can pay a tax bill or some traffic ticket, by credit card but a fee gets tacked on. I would object very much if I had to pay money, especially to some GOV’T agency, if the only available payment options required ME to pay some extra service charge.
Og-fucking-dammit, if YOU (especially a gov’t agency) demand money from me, and only allow payment options that come with a service charge, then YOU damn well cover the service charge! :mad:
I think the thing that the credit card companies (specifically Visa and Mastercard) want to avoid is having to compete with each other over these fees. So long as the store has to eat these fees, they don’t have to compete with each other because what are the stores going to do about it? Not accept Visa and demand their customers use Mastercard because it’s cheaper? Their customers demand which cards they accept without bearing any of the cost.
Contrast with the situation as it would be if the customer bore credit card fees. Most consumers have access to at least one Visa and one Mastercard, and if there was a price difference between the two it is trivial for them to pull out one card instead of the other. The big two would have to compete on fees to keep their customers, or collude to keep fees high, which is illegal.
By insulating the customers from the costs of their card decision, the credit card companies achieve the effect of collusion without the illegality of colluding.
So to answer your question, I think the reason “cash discount” is tolerated is because they already compete with cash on convenience alone, and other than the slight psychological effect of having customers think that cash is getting a discount instead of their customers paying a surcharge, they don’t mind it. What they really want to avoid with their rules is seeing “$12 Visa, $11 Mastercard, $10 cash”, because then they have to compete, which will drive fees down for everybody.
There is no functional difference, only a semantic one and a framing one *. What the store isn’t permitted to do is price the item at $10 and have a sign that states there is a 20% surcharge for credit card payments (and of course they aren’t allowed to surprise you with the fee) .They can price it at $12, and give a 17% discount for cash. They can apparently have two prices listed, one for cash and one for credit as gas stations frequently do.
*Some people will see a 20% credit card surcharge, and either decide not to buy, or will decide to pay with cash to avoid the surcharge. Some of those very same people will see the 17% discount for cash and pay by credit card , because on some level, their mind sees a difference between paying a fee and not getting a discount.
This sounds similar to a situation I learned about in an introductory Economics class. There are some known, reasonably well-defined situations where the “free market” fails to do what a “free market” is theoretically supposed to do, and these are called “market failures”. External costs and external benefits (“externalities”) are well-known (by those who know about them anyway).
Another case arises when the party making the transaction decision (like, what to buy) is not the party paying for it. The textbook examples are college textbooks (the schools, or departments, or individual professors make the choices, the students pay), and pharmaceuticals (the doctors choose their patients’ meds, the patient (or insurance) pays). In these cases, the normal market forces that control supply/demand/price fail. The example of credit card fees, as discussed above, sounds very similar to that.