re: Getting paid "under-the-table"

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He literally stole money from other people. He evaporated the personal livelihoods of thousands of people and institutions associated with them. It hasn't been suggested by me anywhere in this thread that any posters have done such a thing to their fellow citizens...even on a small scale.

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Look at you up on your high horse, judging him for stealing. You're telling me you've never moved to better seats at a game, eaten a grape from the produce section, or connected to your neighbor's wireless?

For the record, I have not:

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moved to better seats at a game, eaten a grape from the produce section, or connected to your neighbor's wireless

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I am above all of you. Bow to me.

Then you have not even begun to live life.

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eaten a grape from the produce section

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Try it just once - the adrenaline rush!

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I'm sure you have your I-9 & W-4 on file, and examined two forms of id, even though she was paid less than $1400.

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I did look at her green card. At any rate I am complying with the spirit of the law and have nothing to hide if the IRS decides to look me up. Although I'm sure an auditor would find something if he looked for it hard enough my point is that I can be a little more self-righteous than JT thinks.

From personal experience,the IRS will get theirs. Believe DAT!

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Right, which is still technically stealing.

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It might be technically stealing (not sure of that, since I've been in partially empty venues before where people were encouraged by staff present to move closer) but in any event, it most certainly is in no way similar to emptying someone's back account fraudulently.

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It's also reasonable for someone who doesn't report his $10 of poker winnings to have a problem with someone trying to avoid an entire business activity's worth of taxes.

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Sure. And my contention is that for most people, it goes way beyond $10.

In any event, you are still missing my point. Which is: the OP is simply less risk-averse than the average citizen. It isn't out of the goodness of their hearts that people pay taxes - it's out of fear of getting caught not doing it. Same as the speeding example I gave - most people go 64 or 69 in a 60 because they think the cops will give you 5 or 10 above the speed limit. If they thought the cops would give you 20, then people would go 79. And so on and so forth.

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Struck a nerve, did I? U mad?

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You made your suggestion I made mine. U the mad one.

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You made your suggestion I made mine. U the mad one.

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I'm not mad. In fact, I'm laughing at you.....

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This is an incredibly narrow-minded conception of human behavior.

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Perhaps, but I believe an objective observation of the real world shows it to be more the case than perhaps any of us is willing to admit.

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The reason I don't go 120 is because it significantly increases the risk of death,

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Sure. But the reason you go 65 instead of 79 is because you don't want a speeding ticket.

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The reason I don't steal is because it's been ingrained in me since age 2 that stealing is morally wrong and, now that I'm an adult and capable of making my own judgment, I agree that yes, stealing is morally wrong. This would apply even if there was a 100% chance I would not get caught. I suspect the same is true of yourself, to a greater or lesser extent, even if (for some reason) you don't want to admit it.

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Sure, we've all been taught varying degrees of what you are talking about. But let's not deny how relevant pragmatic concerns are. Humans respond to incentives. I go back to the story from last month of the Chinese toddler that was run over in the street and then ignored. It's very easy for us to sit here on our high horse in the 1st world where we've long since moved past the point they are at. But that's because the costs of helping a toddler in that situation are almost zero here. In China, the cost of getting involved is very high. You might want to tell yourself that you are so great morally compared to the Chinese, but you are not faced with the same real-life set of circumstances that they are.