What is the penalty for accepting a job in which the person is paid with cash ("under the table")? How common is it for such people to be caught? How does the IRS find out about it?

(Don't worry- I'm not planning on breaking any laws!)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sarai,

The penalty can be as light as paying the back taxes, interest, and a small fine, or as heavy as paying the back taxes, interest, a big fine, and time in a federal prison. Most people are caught because of someone informing the IRS or because they show a higher standard of living than they can prove income for. Not paying taxes with what Al Capone was sent to prison for. Capone was found guilty on five of twenty-three counts of tax evasion and sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison, serving eight, the last few years in Alcatraz.

"Most people are caught because of *someone informing the IRS or because they show a higher standard of living than they can prove income for."

So the best thing to do is keep a low profile and don't associate with *sheeple who unwittingly acquiesce to Communism!!!

I imagine the underground economy based on cash and barter is likely in the billions, the result of a regressive tax system. Ayn Rand once commented: "How do you make a law abiding citizen into a criminal? Make it impossible not to break the law."

JR, consider just the illegal* aspects of the underground economy, and you are in the billions. Drugs, gambling, and prostitution are all areas in which a great deal of cash changes hands, and the government doesn't get a cut. (Some politicians do, though.) Add to that all the fraud, graft, kickbacks, etc, and it soon becomes obvious that the underground economy in the US is bigger than the GNP of some countries.


*Illegal by their very nature rather than made illegal by lack of reporting.

I have no doubt about that. I was referring to barter (I mow your lawn, you fix my leaky faucet, and the lawn service and the plumber, and the charges they get are cut out) or cash (you ask me to work overtime and pay me cash, I get the total gross, you don't get stuck paying SSI and Medicare).