Platform-mediated pay often appears in tax files as nonemployee compensation and in household surveys as secondary or irregular earnings. Pay Depth reads those streams as waterline problems: gross platform receipts may sit above the mark, while fees, equipment, and unpaid waiting stay below it.
Where instruments place the surface
Some papers compare tax-based nonemployee measures with household hours modules. Others document how platform fees enter or exit residual calculations. Agency guidance usually states whether the unit is a person, a tax return, or a platform account. Mixing those units without a crosswalk misplaces the waterline.
Costs the board does not paint
Waiting between tasks, vehicle wear outside the filing period, and platform penalties are frequently absent from both survey and tax concepts. When a study reports “platform earnings,” Pay Depth asks which costs were subtracted and which remain submerged. The desk does not publish outcome stories or product sequences. Corrections: [email protected].