quincy
Senior Member
I imagine that those who must apply for a permit to perform are better about filing taxes, regardless of their earnings.Those that are truly homeless tend not to file federal or state income tax returns, whether they owe or would get money back from the government. The lack of a stable address, no bank accounts, and little or no access to computers are all impediments to many of them. Most of them also don't have much taxable income and pretty much no assets from which the government may collect if they should happen to owe some amount of tax. When the economic stimulus payments went out the IRS made some extra effort to encourage homeless people to file to claim the payments they were entitled to receive. But while it tried to set up some arrangements to deal with the problems that homeless people encounter without a stable address and without access to banking, there were still a number of barriers for those folks to claim those benefits.
Those making that kind of money at it aren't as likely to be homeless.
I agree that the homeless street artists are unlikely to be the ones with high earnings.