Okay so I just posted r/studentloans last night, saying how my dad refuses to give me his info to apply for financial aid. He's doing so because he grew up poor and struggled and I think he wants me to experience the same.

I just want to first say that's the fucking stupidest thing ever. Wanting your kid to learn the value of hard work and wanting your kid to intentionally suffer needlessly are two very different things. Like damn, it's federal financial aid for school. It's not like you're going to get a free half million out of a trust fund then go on a four year backpacking trip through Europe.

So then I remembered one day a few months ago, he left his tax returns on the counter, so I took a peek. It said on that paper that he made $30.000 last year. This is impossible considering we live in a $400,000 dollar house. He's no stranger to doing under the table business for cash, but for no more than a couple hundred bucks (or so he's told me). I'm concerned that there's a lot more going on that I don't know about.

Aaaand now it makes sense.

I wonder if that base salary is that $30,000, and there's another way you have to document commission based incomes?

Nope. Income is income. When you file taxes you have to file all your income. They have different categories for different types of income. For example, income I get from stock dividends is filed under a separate category from salary income.

At the end of the day though my total income is reported to the IRS and is one of the numbers used to calculate my taxes.

Say I'm Forrest Gump. I'm now ridiculously rich so I mow school football fields for fun for $10k/yr. I also own a ton of Apple stock that pays me $500k/yr in dividends. I report both in different categories on my filings. You can bet I'm getting taxed on six figures rather than just that $10k.