L.A.'s underground cash

Daily News ^ | 12/14/2005 | Beth Barrett

[FormerACLUmember]

One positive result of the illegal alien invasion.

[TChris]

In the not-too-distant future, look for cash to be outlawed. Because cash transactions are untraceable, our gub'mint will eventually be convinced that it must be eliminated.

[Pylot]

I just got a reply from Mark Udall, my representative to congress.

He said that these illegals were contributing to our tax base!

He must not have read this article. I think I will send it to him.

[Blueflag]

a "loss-of-revenue-to-the-gummint" whine ;-)

[princess leah]

Alot of illegals like to just use cash because then they can't be traced!

[AD from SpringBay]

But whatever you do - don't lower taxes.

[goodnesswins]

The higher the taxes......the more ways people will find to AVOID them.

[karnage]

taxes too high, too many regs, too much big brother, too many wasted tax dollars = underground economy, citizen-to-citizen transactions. anything that starves gubmint is a good thing.

[QwertyKPH]

No where in this story do they recognize the fact that high taxes are one of the motivations to go "underground". Its a simple free-market fact; if you put up obstacles then people will accept increased risks to earn a living, including risk of incarceration for avoiding taxes.

[Valpal1]

This is happening every where, not just CA.

The more they tax and regulate business, the more business is done on the side, in the shade, under the table or where ever prying eyes can't see.

[RightWhale]

Sounds like straight off the third world script.

[staytrue]

He said that these illegals were contributing to our tax base!

They do pay sales tax, alcohol tax, cigarette tax, business taxes embedded in the cost of things, gasoline tax, universal service fee, tolls, etc.

They also pay about the same in income tax as a citizen low wage worker which is about zero. They pay about the same as a low wage citizen worker in social security after earned income tax credits which is about zero.

They also seem to be better or cheaper than available citizen workers which provides better profits for the business owner and more govt. tax as a result.

[Carry_Okie]

"Given this large number of informal jobs and the continuing practice by many employers of avoiding legally mandated payroll taxes, there is a real risk that a steadily increasing number of employers will adopt this illicit labor-management practice in order to remain competitive within the Los Angeles region," the authors concluded.

That's it! A stroke of genius!!!

We'll call them "informal aliens."

[Shadow Deamon]

"The higher the taxes......the more ways people will find to AVOID them."

Yet, these geniuses don't grasp the advantage of dropping income tax and replacing it with a consumption tax.

[absolootezer0]

In the not-too-distant future, look for cash to be outlawed. Because cash transactions are untraceable, our gub'mint will eventually be convinced that it must be eliminated.

i'd expect schumer or kennedy to try and outlaw cash transactions of gun purchases as a means of gun registration before outlawing cash transations to and from illegals. all of my gun purchases are currently conducted in cash for that exact reason (can't be traced).

[montag813]

It's just too expensive to feed the greedy government.

[ErnBatavia]

At our local Wally World, the clientele is probably 60-70% Hispanic...and 95 percent of the time, they pay in green foldin' money - for huge cartsfull of shopping.

[Pylot]

I should have been more specific, he said they pay payroll taxes!