Owlagdad said:
Oh to be a talented handyman…. That works for cash!!
They are still around.
Very true and the number of those who work only for cash is much larger than people think. Not only handymen, but those who mow, storm cleanup, household help, painters, all sorts of folks who do work primarily for homeowners rather than businesses. Homeowners have no responsibility to report via 1099 forms the monies they pay for services.
One of the areas where the numbers are quite large are with "sitters" which are those who sit with, and somewhat care for, the elderly. They do some cooking, cleaning, and monitoring of the elderly person. When the children have jobs, or live away, they cannot properly care for the parents because of the amount of time they are away from them, so they hire sitters. I have seen several instances where the annual payments ran from $60,000 to just over $100,000 in payments to "sitters" but $30,000 to $40,000 is more common. Often there are three or four taking on the work for one elderly person. The larger numbers were when 24 hour care was involved. These sitters often will only work for cash and tell you so up front. Knowing some of them, I guarantee you most are on social security disability or another government tit, so they not only don't pay income tax on what they earn, they don't lose their disability.
You can bet with these working for cash only that none of it ever sees a bank account.