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Randy · Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: so what would you?

You're into your twelfth year of employment with the same company.

After the first of the year, you go into human resources and ask for a new income tax withholding certificate. You claim "exempt". It's accepted.

March 28, you go back to human resources and ask to change your withholding statement, again. You put it back to what it was originally. It's accepted.

April 15, you're called into the vice-president's office. He tells you he will not, and can not, accept the most recent statement and that you will fill it out according to what he says you must put on it or you will be terminated.

What do you do and why?

For the record: 'Tis a true story here, not hypothetical.

And if it makes any difference in how you might answer, we're talking Virgnia, an "at will" State.

lexa10881 · Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:17 am Post subject:

Randy,

I thought doing anything on taxes that is not true was illegal and you could go to jail, unless I am misunderstanding something here. Are they asking for something illegal to be done or am I misinterpreting that?

If they are doing something illegal, or trying to cause something illegal to happen, I would turn them in. If they are asking you to do it, then they probably have asked others to also.

http://www.cvtips.com/people_problems.html

Randy · Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 5:45 am Post subject:

I thought doing anything on taxes that is not true was illegal

Yep and so already you're getting to the conflict between what is/isn't legal and the employer's responsibility, if any, to actually "do" anything about it.

Are they asking for something illegal to be done or am I misinterpreting that?

Oh, this is all very past tense, happened in 2000, so the little drama has long since played itself out.

So the question becomes: Does an employer have the legal authority to determine what is and is not an acceptable and perhaps even legal withholding statement?

If they are doing something illegal, or trying to cause something illegal to happen, I would turn them in.

Well by now you're keenly aware of how, ummm, cynical and jaded I am when it comes to the conventional wisdom and advice people get regarding jobs, careers, and employment. This little story is part of the reason.

A most cursory glance at the matter and it's clear that, according to the IRS, employers have NO legal authority whatsoever to challenge/question an employee's withholding statement. They are to accept it and IF there are quesitons, they are to report the thing to the IRS so that they/it, the IRS, can investigate.

So here we get to the wonderful irony (and for what it's worth, all this was done with great deliberation on my part "way back then"):

1. The employer never once questioned when I claimed "exempt" which I had no legal reason to do. It was, in essence, a "fraudulent" statement and the employer should have reported that to the IRS. But they didn't.

2. It was when I changed it back to a legally correct statement that the ca-ca hit the fan.

3. We had an absolute war over this, resulting in my termination. And here is where the plot thickens and we enter more cynicism.

I filed for unemployment and the employer agreed.

Six weeks later the employer filed an appeal--against THEIR approval!

AND the won, dammit!

And re "turn them in"?

lexa, I contacted so many people and agencies and entities about this it's a wonder my computer didn't have a meltdown.

And so the moral, if one there be, is the point I usually try to drive home to people, that employment is a thoroughly legalistic matter, end of discussion. And when it comes right down to it, more often than not in "real life" David loses and Goliath wins because it's not about who's "right" and who has the "law" on their side--it's about who has money and power.

And that necessarily becomes the reason I'm so adamant in demanding that people stop being "nice" to their employers, stop "doing favors" and, for example, giving two week notices. It's a legal relationship, not human, and employers insist on calling us human "resources," a relationship in which our humanity takes a far-distant back seat to our mere usefulness as a "resource".

So because they did NOT follow the law by accepting, without question, an "exempt" withholding, then refusing to accept a perfectly legal one, then demanding I accept what THEY told me I had to file, I got fired. And after approving my claim for unemployment, they "changed their minds" and said I was terminated for "employee misconduct" and that, employee misconduct, becomes the ultimate loophole for employers. Anything and everything can be stuffed into that phrase.

Okay, gotta run....

I knew you'd see the distinction I was going for!

If they are asking you to do it, then they probably have asked others to also.

And yes they did and yes, everyone else capitulated. Oh well....

http://www.cvtips.com/people_problems.html[/quote]

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