<p>I've been an "invisible" member on CC for a looooong time but this is actually my first post because I haven't seen any threads in the past dealing with this... </p>
<p>I'm currently a rising senior, so I'm getting a head start on college apps. During my sophmore year, I worked two part-time jobs, one at a private-owned restaurant, and one at a private-owned mall cart. I worked five days a week to help support my family, and I got paid in cash. (These aren't major corporations here - they're small businesses)</p>
<p>So here's my dilemna: Since I got paid in cash, I didn't pay taxes, nor did any of it get taxed beforehand. So are these illegal jobs???? I didn't even know this was illegal - I found out last week! I was really hoping to write them down in my college application, because I don't want all the time and work I put into my jobs to go to waste.... Nor do I want colleges to think I am a law-breaker, or that I'm dumb enough to not know the law.....</p>
<p>Any experience, advice, etc. would be much appreciated :(</p>
<p>List the jobs. The apps don't ask if you paid any payroll taxes so they have no inclination of legality or not. The adcoms want to know what you've done -- they aren't agents of the IRS.</p>
<p>But, also, for your peace of mind, go to irs.gov where there's a link to sites where you can do your taxes free/cheap if you are below a certain income. You would have to count the income as self-employment income (paying extra on the social security) or else get your former employers in big trouble. Run the numbers and see where you stand. If you don't want to do something like that online, buy yourself a copy of Turbotax, or just download the tax forms from irs.gov. It may be that you don't owe as much as you might think - and you can pay it and never worry about it again.</p>
<p>As far as the colleges go - how you were paid or if you paid taxes is none of their business and should not even come up.</p>
<p>dont worry since it is in cash theres no record of it. how do you think the mob does business. i believe that is called being paid under the table. the mob was also the reason for that expression too. Now i know this may sound like a digression but it brings me to my point, do you need to worry about those jobs. "Forget about it" (in strong italian accent)</p>
<p>I thought about the exact same thing. I used to help my parents with their store and got paid in cash from them. I was never a "formal" employee, with papers and stuff. So I was wondering if I could put this on my application too.. I worked there almost 20 hours a week so it's pretty important to me.</p>
<p>Definitely list them. I tutored lots of students over my high school years, made quite a few thousand dollars, and put that on my app; however, my schools did not require me to contribute any part of my would-be savings, as I made it clear that it was to help support my family. I too was paid in cash and did not pay taxes for it.</p>
<p>I used to sell pot on the street to 8 year olds and I since I was pretty committed and passionate about this extracurricular activity, I am wondering if it would hurt me if I put that on the app despite it not being a taxed and government-sanctioned occupation.</p>
<p>Besides the fact that they have no particular reason to do so in the first place, colleges have too many applicants to crosscheck the tax records of every applicant with the jobs they listed...</p>
<p>Also I too was expecting the job itself to be illegal, not the taxation of wages. Not say something black market, just you doing something that you need a certification to do or something, like working in a pharacy,lifeguarding, emt, etc when you lacked said certification</p>
<p>Yeah list it haha. This is nothing and colleges don't ask nor care about taxes. Like everyone else I thought the "illegal job" was drug dealing or selling pirated software lol</p>
<p>where i live, its illegal to work under 18, but a lot of us work for the school during summer camps and get paid in cash + no taxes...id still put it down, stop worrying about it...</p>