[Ted Frank,
Wednesday, January 24, 2007 at 6:31pm]
The downside of being law-abiding
...is that one is competing with those who are not. Unhappy with our previous cat-mauling commercial maid service, we started negotiations with a highly-recommended husband-and-wife maid team to replace them. But those fell through when I announced that Slim and I would need to comply with federal requirements for taxation and I-9 paperwork. Perhaps this offended them (I certainly felt awkward about the racist implications of asking for the I-9), or perhaps I avoided being Zoe Bairded at some future date, but it's at least as likely that they didn't want to have to deal with losing 20-35% of their income to taxes when there were others who would pay them under the table.
I am reliably informed that a fellow Yale professor warned Paul Gewirz, Zoe Baird's husband, of the (then relatively unknown) federal requirements for taxation when they hired their nanny, and was ignored.
I know a lot of people, maybe the majority, who use domestic help don't abide by the tax laws, but I assumed that was a conscious decision, not an "oops, employment involves taxes?" thing.