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Some Utah companies pay their employees cash under the table, with no paperwork, no payroll deductions, no questions asked. By doing so, the exploit workers, rob taxpayers, and drive down wages, the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper reports. The practice is so prevalent in the building trades in Utah that state Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is asking the Legislature for money to hire a special prosecutor and a tax-fraud investigator to build cases against contractors. Paying workers in this way is not fair to workers who are denied benefits or to legitimate businesses that are forced to compete on an uneven playing field. Violators employ a simple scheme that can save up to 30 percent on their labor costs. Instead of calling an employee an employee, they classify their workers as “independent contractors.” The difference is significant. Independent contractors set their own hours and perform a specific job for a set price using their own equipment without direct supervision. And they pay their own taxes as well as unemployment compensation and workers’ compensation insurance premiums. Or at least they’re supposed to. Shurtleff is so confident of success that he claims the prosecutor and investigator, if hired, would “pay for themselves.” Source: Salt Lake Tribune
Some Utah companies pay their employees cash under the table, with no paperwork, no payroll deductions, no questions asked. By doing so, the exploit workers, rob taxpayers, and drive down wages, the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper reports.
The practice is so prevalent in the building trades in Utah that state Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is asking the Legislature for money to hire a special prosecutor and a tax-fraud investigator to build cases against contractors.
Paying workers in this way is not fair to workers who are denied benefits or to legitimate businesses that are forced to compete on an uneven playing field.
Violators employ a simple scheme that can save up to 30 percent on their labor costs. Instead of calling an employee an employee, they classify their workers as “independent contractors.”
The difference is significant. Independent contractors set their own hours and perform a specific job for a set price using their own equipment without direct supervision. And they pay their own taxes as well as unemployment compensation and workers’ compensation insurance premiums. Or at least they’re supposed to.
Shurtleff is so confident of success that he claims the prosecutor and investigator, if hired, would “pay for themselves.”
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
Francisco Uviña, University of New Mexico
Hardscape Oasis in Litchfield Park
Ash Nochian, Ph.D. Landscape Architect
November 12th, 2025
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