Rollaway odd jobs "black" companies "forget" to declare certain benefits … The small and big tricks to earn more without paying taxes or social security in developed countries are becoming increasingly common thanks to crisis. In escaping the state controls, individuals like firms engage in what economists call the informal economy, or underground.

"Because of the economic crisis, the shadow economy in 2010 will have increased in developed countries, after rising in 2009, wrote in a recent study by Friedrich Schneider, Austrian economist and specialist in the informal economy. According to his calculations, the share of the unofficial economy in the gross domestic product (GDP) in OECD countries rose by 13.3% in 2008 to 14% in 2010.In France, this ratio increased from 11.1% to 11.7%.

The increase may seem small, but it puts an end to the downward trend going back to the late 1990s. The Baltic and Mediterranean European countries experiencing the highest ratios. The shadow economy represents 25% of GDP in Greece and around 40% in Latvia and Estonia, as the work of Schneider. So many countries where the crisis hit harder than elsewhere.

To compensate for loss of income

Job losses, layoffs … revenue base with the crisis. "Many people try to compensate for their declining revenues through greater participation in informal transactions," says Friedrich Schneider.Among the top sectors fueling the underground economy, are the building trades and crafts, including the restoration, "he observes.

The underground economy is not always a bad thing. "I think the increase in informal activities during a crisis can avoid a recession even greater," said Friedrich Schneider. "Individuals and businesses earn more money, they can spend in the formal economy."

Fraud Investigations

In the Directorate of Legislation, recovery and service (Dirr), we measure the effects of the crisis on French companies thanks to anti-fraud investigations conducted in 2009. "A society that has problems is more likely to be in violation," said executive vice president of control, Jean-Michel Guerra.

To avoid bloodshed, but the controllers have been instructed to be conciliatory. The time granted in 2009 to companies in trouble when adjustments on previous years, usually stable, jumped 58%. Still, delinquencies have increased during the recovery of a half point, to 1.45%, from 12.5 billion euros.

One last figure: last year, the number of minutes prepared for working illegally jumped 27%, in part, it is true, thanks to control operations more focused and more frequent. The crisis should be felt in the figures of the anti-fraud encopre for several years. The controls on the activities of companies are indeed made for two to three years thereafter.