Crackdown on cash jobs by tradies

Twenty-five per cent of the tradespeople surveyed by IRD said they thought cash jobs were common in the industry. Photo / NZME

The Inland Revenue is launching another campaign targeting tradespeople doing out jobs for cash payment, after a survey of workers in the industry showed under-the-table jobs were thought to be common by a quarter of people.

The IRD valued the "hidden economy" of intentionally not declaring or accurately reporting transactions at $146 million in its 2015 Annual Report.

A July 2016 survey of 500 tradespeople evaluated the perception of under-the-table work in the industry.

Twenty-five per cent of the tradespeople surveyed said they thought work done for cash payment was common in the industry. Seventy-eight per cent of respondents said tax cheating was a crime and that doing jobs under-the-table in their own time is not okay.

IRD said under-the-table jobs were considered in a more negative light by the industry.

In 2012, less than 40 per cent of surveyed tradespeople thought of tax cheating as a real crime. That figure jumped to 60 per cent in IRD's latest survey.

Today IRD launched another campaign highlighting the illegality of doing work for under-the-table payments.

The campaign, with the message: "We're black and white about undeclared cash jobs - it's tax crime", targets Auckland and Christchurch.

It comes after a March and April campaign focused on Auckland and Queenstown.