VAT evasion is widespread in certain countries (like Italy for instance), and pushing people to prefer electronic payments to cash is empirically the only realistic way to counter it, but there will always be resistance from small retailers until payment fees are low enough. The availability of electronic payments should be universal, I personally hate being forced to constantly carry cash on myself at all times. In…
Lost VAT revenue is not due to mom-and-pop shops offering a discount under the table. The vast majority of lost VAT revenue is due to organized VAT carousel frauds, also knows as missing trader fraud, where an organized groups of 10-20 people siphons tens of millions into their pockets through reimbursements of fictitious trades. It's one of the most lucrative fraud schemes there is, but if caught and convicted, the sentences are usually comparable to that of murderers. If not caught, the accomplices frequently try to assassinate each other in a sort of a sick tournament-style elimination