TAX FRAUD

Tax Fraud by corrupt contractors robs our communities up to $2.6 billion a year- money that can support education, public safety and infrastructure programs [1]. This criminal activity is just one aspect of the illegal business practices plaguing the construction industry, along with wage theft, independent contractor misclassification and workers’ compensation insurance fraud.

 

Shady schemes include the use of labor traffickers, off-the-books cash pay, falsified workers’ compensation insurance premiums, violation of wage and hour laws and the use of fake bank accounts. This gives cheating contractors the ability to steal jobs from honest businesses and hurt working families.

 

This happens every day on large scale projects, including mixed-use and multi-family housing development projects, and can involve contractors with hundreds of workers.

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Cracking down on this issue is all the more critical now, when we are facing a housing crisis and a need to attract the skilled workforce for new projects. We cannot build our way to the future with fraud and wage theft.

 

General contractors and developers can play an active role in responding to tax fraud by vetting subcontractor’s payroll practices, checking for prior history of violations and monitoring their projects for unlawful business practices.

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[1]  http://standinguptotaxfraud.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Estimating-the-Construction-Tax-Gap.pdf