Three owners of a charter bus company in San Jose, California apparently had the idea that if it’s in cash, it’s not income. As readers of this blog know, that’s definitely not the case. This likely won’t turn out well for a bus company.
Quality Assurance Travel provides charter bus service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Among the charters they run is one to the Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino near Coarsegold (east of Fresno and Merced in the Sierra Nevada foothills). Quality Assurance advertises the trips on their website, even noting the low cost of $20.
What they don’t mention on the website is that the fare is payable only in cash. That is mentioned in the US Attorney’s press release, along with the accusation that the owners of the bus company neglected to include the cash on their tax returns but did manage to include the money paid by the casino (as checks) to the bus company.
The owners of the bus company, Fidencio Moreno, Arturo Moreno, and Elena Moreno, are accused of tax fraud and facing several years at ClubFed if found guilty of the charges. To answer the question I posed with the headline of this story, cash income is just as taxable as checks or credit cards.
