[_delirium]

It varies by state, but in Texas at least, major (>$5,000) improvements to a property are supposed to be reported. You could just not report it, but that's technically illegal. Also, one thing that makes reporting compliance relatively high is that there's a separate registration requirement (for different reasons) on the construction contractor's side: contractors undertaking home-improvement projects of >$5,000 are required to use a specific type of escrow account to hold the money temporarily, in order to resolve any disputes that might arise. There are contractors who will take your payment in cash and not register an escrow account, but reputable contractors won't risk that. And if you go that route, you aren't protected against what the escrow account is designed to protect against, that the contractor does shoddy (or no) work and just walks away with your cash. So people tend to do that only if they're having the work done by friends/family.