'L.A.'s Hidden Money'

The cover package of seven staff stories in this week's L.A. Business Journal explores the cash-based underground economy, with a mainbar by RiShawn Biddle. Capsules look at a day laborer, a domestic worker, a stripper, a student, a merchant, a street vendor and a landlord -- the story calls them all "Artful Dodgers" for their reliance on cash transactions.

The mainbar lede:

It’s hidden in plain sight. Signs of L.A.’s flourishing underground economy are everywhere, from the front of the Tommies burger stand on the corner of Pico and Sawtelle boulevards, where day laborers line up each morning, to kids’ birthday parties in Beverly Hills, where undocumented nannies mind the children of the very rich.

There is also the drug trafficking on downtown’s skid row, or the bartender who doesn’t report all his tip income to the IRS, or the painter who will update a façade for $1,200 – if paid in cash.

All this generates billions of dollars, nearly all of it untaxed and unregulated.