'I hate it when taxi drivers give me blank receipts' blog discussion

A question about : 'I hate it when taxi drivers give me blank receipts' blog discussion

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's I hate it when taxi drivers give me blank receipts Blog.

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Best answers:

• This drives me mad aswell! I'm usually in a rush, although not such a rush that they couldn't write a number and a signature.
  I just fill in the cost and hope for the best. If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide type thoughts are in my mind when I fill in the numbers (but not the signature).
  It's worse when they give you a receipt for a different cab firm -I've had that a few times too!
• Surely you've just got to be honest about it.
  If you need a filled-in receipt then that's what you need to ask for.
  But if it is ok to get a blank one and fill it in correctly then do just that. Fill in the correct amount and sign it as yourself to say this is what you paid, with a comment to say that the driver left it blank.
• The driver left it blank for a reason.
  Cash business = Tax evasion.
  (and not 'sorry guv I haven't got a pen' etc)
  The same reason why not many cabs can take card payments, despite the technology being readily available and in use.
• I hate this too... I usually try to disguise my handwriting and then feel like I have done something wrong, immoral and illegal!! Even though I am always honest about the amount I am claiming.
  Having said that we are no longer allowed to claim for taxis, so this problem is a thing of the past for me
• I don't see a problem here either, I'd just fill in the correct amount and not sign it.
  I used to love it when I travelled for work and got blank receipts. It meant I could add the cash I'd spent tipping hotel cleaners and baggage people and the like to the taxi receipt and get my money back. My company would never pay expenses without a receipt and you can't get a receipt for a cash tip. I'd tip a standard amount, not excessively. I considered it not to be dishonest but just "creative accounting" and never felt guilty for it.
• The problem I have is that I am often so late at doing my expenses that I can't recall how much cash I gave the driver. If I claim too much I am cheating my employer and if I claim too little I cheat myself.
• .....
  The solution is simple, check your receipt when you receive it (I thought that would be a given?) and if it is not completed in full, man up and request that the driver completes it fully.
  As for being worried about insulting a taxi driver who hands you a fistful of blank receipts, just ask yourself why he is offering you the receipts.
  a) He thinks you regularly lose taxi receipts and thus need a stash of blank ones.
  b) He thinks you look like the kind of person who needs blank receipts to fiddle their expenses.
  If anyone should feel insulted, it's you and if you have any doubts that the answer is b), the next time a Taxi driver offers you a fistful of blank receipts, ask him why he is giving you them.
• Hi,
  I can't really see any problem with this practise! So what if they are possibly doing it to evade tax? If they are, they will eventually get caught or go out of business...thats their problem, not ours. By doing it, are they ultimately putting the passenger out of pocket? Er..no.
  How is it inconvenient? All you need to do is fill in the amount yourself, and the expense can be claimed....Mountain out of a molehill IMO (although no disrespect to MSE Martin!)
• as a driver i actualy fill out most of receipt before journeys end--you tend to know depending where you going if pax needs receipt.at most it takes 20 secs to fill in receipt from scratch end of journey.
  at end of destination i just hav to fill in amount an sign it 2 secs.i tend to get asked for blank if pax is very rushed-has to catch train or flight.
• re-read blog
  best to stay in cab asking for receipt
  once out---meter light is on and another pax is half sec away from jumping in
• I am a solicitor so meant to be honest. I used to work late, take a taxi home then claim it back. I would tip the taxi driver then look at the receipt when I got inside and noticed that they had added some extra on for me to make a profit. It was very odd going to accounts and asking for less than that which was on the receipt.
• Never had a blank but was in Cardiff in November for the scotland game, We had booked a Travel lodge and got there to find out they had a burst sewage pipe so had to move us, They told us to get a taxi to the other hotel (which was city centre and actually suited us!) and we could claim it back. There were 6 of us so they got us a people carrier.
  The driver never gave us blanks but gave us two recipts and told us just to say we had taken two normal taxi's between us and gave us two recipts for Ј11.50 for our Ј15 people carrier journey.. In my drunken state i tipped him Ј5 so didnt really gain from it anyway!
  Best bit was he'd signed them with two different names. One Williams and one Jones!
• I always get blank receipts from cabbies, especially in London, they usually just hand over a wedge. I always put the correct amount down, as it aint worth losing a juicy contract over the odd scam taxi receipt.
• I claim mine against HMRC (rather than an accounting department) as I'm Director of my own company. To add to the confusion, I tend to also have ones from various different places - in November I picked up ones in LA, London, Bangkok and Melbourne!
  I average the cost of my other ones, and multiply it by my blank receipts, make sure I only have one receipt per journey (at time of receipt) and use that. It's probably right, and saves me a bunch of hassle.
• another problem is you don't have the taxi number on a blank
• I am uncomfortable when they do this, I think its immoral as its basically so people can fiddle their expenses and we all know what the public think of people doing that. Make sure you get them to fully complete it.