Examples

• A skimming crime may be simple tax evasion
  Tax evasion
  Tax evasion is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Tax evasion usually entails taxpayers deliberately misrepresenting or concealing the true state of their affairs to the tax authorities to reduce their tax liability,...
  
  : the owner of a business may fail to "ring up" a transaction and pocket the cash, thus converting a customer's payment directly to the owner's personal use without accounting for the profit
  Profit (accounting)
  In accounting, profit can be considered to be the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market whatever it is that is accounted as an enterprise in terms of the component costs of delivered goods and/or services and any operating or other expenses.-Definition:There are...
  
  , thereby the owner avoids paying either business or personal income tax
  Income tax
  An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
  
  es on it. A famous example of this crime occurred at Studio 54
  Studio 54
  Studio 54 was a highly popular discotheque from 1977 until 1991, located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York, USA. It was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming a CBS radio and television studio. In 1977 it...
  
   discotheque, which was forced to close as a result.

• Skimming may additionally be the direct theft
  Theft
  In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
  
   of the cash; in addition to hiding it from tax authorities, the perpetrator hides the taking from an employer, business partners, or shareholders. A large scale such allegation has been leveled at Satyam Computer Services concerning the billion dollars missing from the company's coffers.

• Skimming may be necessitated by a third crime; for example, an otherwise honest businessman who pays taxes and does not cheat his partners might still be forced to skim some cash from the business and use it to give to an extortionist in the form of a bribe, kickback
  Bribery
  Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
  
  , or payment to a protection racket
  Protection racket
  A protection racket is an extortion scheme whereby a criminal group or individual coerces a victim to pay money, supposedly for protection services against violence or property damage. Racketeers coerce reticent potential victims into buying "protection" by demonstrating what will happen if they...
  
   or loan shark
  Loan shark
  A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at illegally high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence....
  
   or even a blackmailer.

• Other related usages can include things such as corrupt government officials
  Kleptocracy
  Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often without pretense of honest...
  
   in a poor country "skimming" cash received as foreign aid