#TaxFraud #IRS #EmploymentIssues #TaxProblems #LegalAdvice
Is your wife facing a nightmare with her former employer commenting fraud on her taxes? 🤯 It’s a stressful situation to navigate, but you’re not alone in this battle. Many individuals like you have encountered similar challenges and found practical solutions to resolve them effectively. Let’s dive into the details and explore how you can tackle this issue head-on.
### The Problem:
Back in ’22, my wife started working at a small mom and pop type daycare. During the first few months, she never received any type of paystub and the employer only gave her a cashier’s check instead of an actual check. Whenever she asked to see the breakdown of the taxes, the employer just showed it to her on the employer’s cell phone. When asked for a physical copy, the employer always had an excuse about why it wasn’t available. Last year when you tried to file taxes, you had a hard time doing so as the employer never provided any W-2’s to you. Finally after waiting so long, you filed back in June. It was only after filing a formal complaint with the state labor board that you received copies of all the paystubs showing the breakdown of the taxes taken out. However, you noticed a discrepancy in the taxes reported by the employer and the actual amount paid. What should you do next?
### Practical Solutions:
1. **Contact Relevant Authorities:** Reach out to the state labor board, the state tax agency, and the IRS to report the fraudulent activities of the employer. Provide them with all the necessary documentation, including the paystubs showing the taxes taken out.
2. **Seek Legal Advice:** Consider consulting with a tax attorney or a legal professional specializing in employment law to understand your rights and options. They can guide you on the best course of action to take against the employer.
3. **File a Small Claims Action:** If you believe that the employer has committed theft by not accurately reporting your wife’s income and taxes, you may consider filing a small claims action to recover the missing amount. Make sure to gather all relevant evidence to support your case.
4. **Stay Informed:** Keep track of any correspondence from the IRS regarding the adjusted tax refund and be prepared to respond promptly. Understand the implications of being listed as an independent contractor instead of an employee by the employer.
### Conclusion:
Dealing with tax fraud and employment issues can be overwhelming, but taking proactive steps and seeking help from the right resources can help you navigate through this challenging situation. Remember, you have the right to protect your legal and financial interests, so don’t hesitate to take action against any wrongdoing by your wife’s former employer. Stay strong, stay informed, and don’t back down until justice is served! 💪🏼🔍📑
You’ve contacted everyone you need to contact. You just need to wait for them to do their thing. Just make sure you keep copies of every bit of documentation in a place where you can find it.
You may also want to set aside a little bit of money in the unlikely event that you owe some money to either tax agency when you are able to revise your taxes.
Sounds like they misclassified her. There is a way you can contest that through the irs . A form you fill out if you were musclassified.form 8919 should be filed with your taxes to claim misclassification
You should see if there is a Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic in your area that could help you fill out a form 8919 and pursue the issue. They are federally funded and their services are free.
So it sounds like – the employer withheld taxes as if she was a W2 employee, but filed her as a 1099 contractor, thus stealing money from her (employer kept the taxes withheld). They kept the money they claimed to be withholding for taxes.
I’d see if you can get a free consult with a tax attorney. The employer definitely stole from your wife; as far as the State is concerned, the employer may claim “no, she was always a 1099, she must have misunderstood”, in which case it would come down to “who’s lying??”. The IRS may not consider this fraud, if that makes sense.
Seems like the employer could claim that the actual money they agreed to pay your wife was what they paid in cashier’s checks – that your wife agreed to be a contractor, and your wife is lying or confused. Do you have any documentation of the fraud, like texts/emails asking for your pay stubs and the employer’s responses? It could come down to “he said/she said”, if I understand this correctly.
Unless any tax attorneys respond here, your best bet is to get some actual, educated, expert advice – use social media, your friends and work contacts, to see if anyone knows a good tax attorney; most legit attorneys will give a free consult, but this is a specialized area of the law.
You may need to get a text or something as evidence, get the employer to clearly state your wife was an employee with withholding, get solid evidence of them lying and stating she was W2, before the IRS starts calling the business – may take some friendly trickery to do that, IE not being aggressive/angry.
wait what did they comment?
I know a person who went through something similar.
She had the proof that she received pay stubs stating that the state and federal payroll taxes were paid and submitted them to the IRS office. Unfortunately, the investigation concluded that the employer never remitted the payroll tax payments to the correct state and government entities and she ended up having to pay for the payroll taxes (aka treated as a 1099 contractor).
She did not go after the employer as to her the employer happened to be her good friends’ relatives…smh
I do hope you’ll be able to be made whole and be refunded what you were mislead to believe was paid.
In addition to the other comments, per the Department of Labor, employers just can’t decide whether or not an employee is a W-2 or 1099 (which is technically not an employee).
It’s more of a sniff test, but if your wife’s hours were dictated, how and where she worked was dictated (how many kids, specifics about what activities were to be done that day, etc) and terms of agreement (i.e. if she got an offer letter, she is most certainly a W-2 unless it was spelled out differently).
[https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/independent-contractor-self-employed-or-employee](https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/independent-contractor-self-employed-or-employee)