Chris, food for thought. The fact that the Italian restaurant owner in the example in your post did not report the cash income, does not necessarily make him/her a very bad person. Suppose the owner passed most if not all of the savings on taxes on to the employees, in the form of higher wages, or to the customers, in the form of lower prices, or maybe the money was donated to charity, we don't know. Does the State and Federal government make better use of that money?
What benefit was it to society that the restaurant had to close for six months? The restaurant owner and employees were out of work for six months, the customers had less choices for food, no revenues thus no taxes for the State and Federal Government. Suppose the restaurant closed for good, would that be better for society?
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