What is your favorite "tax-free income"?

The IRS allows a$13,000 pr year tax free gift. That’s my favorite.

@12Oaks you should pay tax on the money you earn as a musical performer. This is not a tax free income it is tax evasion.

Gambling earnings are also taxable in the USA. But gambling losses are deductible. It is up to you if the cost of getting caught is worth the extra cash in your pocket.

Remember Al Capone was sent to prison for tax evasion, not any of his other crimes.

Back when I was at the car wash, a fair portion of my income (on top, I might add, of a 25c-better-than-minimum-wage paycheck) was in tips, which were pooled and split at the end of the day. This being cash that the owner didn’t process, there were no provisions for it on the Form W-2. In happier times, you could look forward to an extra $35—$40 per day.
I wasn’t earning enough at the time to be required to pay taxes, anyway. Just the usual paycheck deductions for the elderly and the indigent.

@WestRiverrat I thought that tax evasion was the only one that they could make stick.

The way I look at it, I already pay up close to 50% of my regular work income in taxes. I’m 42, looking to retire soon. Can see it down the barrel and have the crosshairs aimed and am locked and loaded. I pay way more than my fair share, so am looking to even out the playing field so I could soon retire soon on my own terms. I’m just trying my best to help support my family without asking for help from anyone or anything else. Like to consider it my own “tax cut,” if you will. Thought I was doing the right thing.

@12Oaks if we could all decide individually how much tax we paid how much do you think would be paid?

Methamphetamine.

@RareDenver I pay over 47%, well over. Seems like well more than my fair share. I’d like to less than half that, which would be closer to fair.

I heat with wood and burn my paper trash in my stove . 20 pounds of wood or paper has the same heating value as a gallon of heating oil. ~$3.50! I used to burn about 1000 gallons of heating oil per season. Now it’s down to less than 150 gallons. $2,500!
Also, that bag of paper trash left over from breakfast (egg shells, banana peel, junk mail, tissues, bacon fat soaked paper towels) was worth about a buck! Tax free!
Was it my imagination or did I really smell the aroma of bacon?

Schoolgirl’s lunch money.

We have a medical flex-plan that is set aside before taxes to pay our medical expenses.

@Nullo exactly, it was the IRS not the FBI that got Capone locked up.

Now the IRS says you have to report that tip money too. In fact they have minimums you have to report, whether you actually made that much or not.

@WestRiverrat How is that supposed to work? It sounds like tax evasion, but going too far the other way.

Not sure how it works, I just know that one of the cafes here got shut down because they were not reporting tips.