They are targeting the tradie who might do a 'cash job' for a mate, the cafe that says 'cash only' at its register but may not declare all the 'cash' as income at tax time and the small business owner that might 'over declare' an occasional expense or two.

But how does the tax department know these people are doing these things?

They are being dobbed in by members of the public.

Assistant Commissioner Peter Holt said "we're seeing an upward trend in the volume of referrals about people suspected of participating in the black economy, which suggests that honest businesses have had enough of competitors cheating the system and getting an unfair advantage".

He said "going on current numbers, we're on track to receive over 70,000 community referrals before the end of this financial year...by way of comparison, we received over 51,000 referrals in 2017-18 and that was the highest ever number of referrals received".

The record number of referrals coincides with 'improvements' to the process for letting the ATO know about suspected tax evasion, the Assistant Commissioner said. "Our tip-off line is the taxation equivalent of Crime Stoppers for tax," he said.

This looks and smells a bit like the Liberal and National government's robo-debt program where they chased Centrelink clients, many amongst the poorest people in the nation, for debts that some of them didn't legitimately have.

Indeed it is wrong for people to shirk their tax responsibilities continually, but the question remains as to why the government through the ATO isn't going after multi-national tax dodgers with the same vigour?

Perhaps it is easier to go after tradies who might not vote Liberal and National than it is to go after organisations that may be big Liberal Party donors.