Can you get away with an illegal GST discount if you pay cash?

Electronic monitoring: A cashier scanning a shoe box in a store. Electronic submission of GST returns using electronic point of sale systems enables Customs to analyse the trend within each GST registered business. – Bloomberg

THE first time I heard the question “How much for cash?” was in a hardware store in a small town in the UK.

I was a child, shopping with my grandfather in the mid to late 1980s. I wasn’t sure what it meant, other than my grandfather seemed to get a discount when he asked. Then I learned it was something to do with VAT or value added tax (the UK equivalent of a GST or goods and services tax).