Italian here. Our right wing government who blinks an eye to all small entrepreneur in Italy (there are A TON here) recently increased the max cash payment from 2k to 5k. This is definitely a way to say "please be free to recycle a bit more oney" and to gain votes in exchange.
It's incredible how Germany, Austria, or Switzerland to name a few have this crazy high cash payment.
In fact our "ndrangheta" for example (Mafia from Calabria) expanded a lot in Germany due to this.