Originally Posted by V_RocKs

Well, the only way the IRS knows you made money is when a company sends the IRS a copy of your 1099. A company does not legally need to send one if they paid you less than $600 in the year. Most companies won't send it if this is the case.

A lot of self employed people do not report this income since there is no record of it.

Not reporting it as income will get you an audit if you have some old lady who likes to report everything for some fuckin reason. In most cases, if you don't get a 1099 and you haven't moved recently or some shit that could cause it to get lost in the mail system, then the IRS didn't get one either.