I understand the desire to avoid paying tax by taking cash, but is it common that a tradesperson is paying 50% income tax? I only have a US resident's perspective, but that rate seems very high.
stormqloud seems to have a bit of an axe to grind, so it's worth taking their words with a grain of salt.
Someone earning 60K USD in Canada (~75K CAD) would have a marginal income tax rate ranging from 27% to 38%, depending on their province. If they're a contractor, they'd have access to a bunch of deductions against their expenses. They could further use an RRSP to shelter their income, or at least defer taxes to future years with lower income, thus driving their average tax rate down.
The USA, the second highest bracket for federal (greater than $160,000) is 32%, then you have the 15.3% self-employment tax (social security + medicare), that alone is 47.3%. The minimum state income tax in most states will push you over 50%, but at $160,000 in California, that would be an additional 9.3%, so 56.3% total. Of course, we're ignoring credits but I assume $160,000 for a contractor in SF is pretty regular.
Fwiw, those are marginal rates and you deduct the “employer half” of self-employment taxes.
So a (filing single) contractor making 160,000 in California would pay more like $60k in total taxes (which is still 37.5% effective).
But given the number of UK folks for this topic, the “Social Security” and FICA amount (~15%, so nearly half of “tax”) is effectively similar to National Insurance.
Sorry, I thought I put marginal in there (that's why I mentioned brackets). There was lots of stuff I omitted like the SALT deduction. But I lumped all that stuff into "credits". For those reading, if you are paying 50% in tax in the US, you're probably doing something wrong even if all the marginal rates add up to that.
Most trades in Canada are max tax rate, because the max tax rate kicks in at extremely low levels compared to USA.