
The tax gap is the difference between tax the IRS believes it should collect and what is actually paid. Tax preparers who are not familiar with the tax gap soon will learn about it as a result of their registered tax return preparer CPE.
To see what the IRS means by the tax gap only requires considering two workers conducting identical jobs. One is an employee who receives a W-2 each year reporting wages earned. The other is an independent contractor who is paid by each customer. They both are paid the same amounts.
However, all of the employee's paycheck income appears on the W-2. But, the self-employed independent contractor's income isn't reported anywhere. If some payments are in cash, they don't even appear as bank deposits....