bamagirl, I hope you were able to claim the money you paid her. Many people who demand cash do so because they don't plan to report the income. The same thing goes for some housekeepers. Back in the day when I did home based daycare, I gave my SS# as my tax ID to the parents of the kids so they could claim childcare expenses as a deduction on their taxes, and I filed tax returns on my salary. I get furious thinking about the fact that so many people collect government assistance and make as much if not more than the rest of us who just barely scrape by. We shouldn't condone it, much less encourage it.