Related: Robert Reich posted earlier today that Tesla paid ZERO taxes on $5 billion in sales (earnings?), so that’s just fucking great.
That's a lot of people man. Poor and rich alike. Lots and lots of people cheat on their taxes, lie about their income, and use tax loopholes to reduce their tax burdens, both legally and illegally.
OP above doesn't have to report that 2500, and incredibly common for self employed people to vastly under report their income within about 10%. The vast majority will never be audited, but from those who have been audited the IRS draws the following conclusion:
“For example, overall, people reporting work earnings to the IRS that are between the 5th and 75th percentiles underreported self-employment income of $4,000 on average,” she said. “In contrast, those below the 5th percentile underreported self-employment income averaging $21,000 while those above the 95th percentile underreported self-employment income averaging $27,000, and this is a conservative estimate, as earnings above $250,000 are masked in the data.”
in other countries it's far worse. a major part of the 2009 Greek financial crisis was the fact 1/3 of Greek GDP is untaxed. that's 1/3 of the taxes missing entirely.
https://www.npr.org/2010/03/25/125125500/greeces-bottom-line-too-many-tax-cheats