I once had someone who quit working for me, because her other job, bartending, was paying her “under the table” which I refused to do. When I objected to her receiving unemployment compensation, I explained that she was working another job, getting paid under the table, and supplied all the details.
They denied her claim but never pursued the tax avoidance issue.
Never had this happen, but why wouldn’t the lender first approach the applicant for W-2s?
Because the employee tells the mortgage company the info, then the mortgage company verifies it with the employer. Almost all my employees have gotten a refi during the pandemic with such low interest rates out there now. One is on her 2nd pandemic refi.
I guess I’m dense. How would my copy of their W-2 be any different than their copy of their W-2?
They’re simple to alter if they want to qualify for a higher mortgage. After the mortgage debacles in the recent past, lenders are tightening up their verifications.
Hopefully it woudn’t. But if I were of a mind to commit fraud, I might well get creative and fake up a W2 that showed rather more earnings than I actually received. It’s pretty routine to do some sort of earnings verification with the employer.
Wow…
Would you have preferred a jury summons? There are far more onerous duties a court can impose on you than filling out some paperwork.
Well, I’m still bothered by the fact that the court is making a demand of my time with zero recompense. It just doesn’t seem right.
I remember being similarly upset when I was subpoenaed to testify for the plaintiff (an attorney) in a civil case. I missed several days of work, wasn’t paid, even had to pay my own parking. Oh, and the plaintiff (an attorney) asked the court to allow her to treat me as hostile and the judge had to remind her I was her witness. (she lost)
But it was involuntary, and it was servitude.
Yeah, it wouldn’t be that hard to fake a w-2.
The form to fill out also has parts asking about the future. Whether I think that they will continue to be employed, and whether they are due any raises.
Actually, that’s one part of being a business owner that does save time.
I’m usually exempt, as my presence is crucial to the operation of my business.
Yeah, banks want employers to verify to avoid fraud. I actually don’t know that you’re obligated to verify employment/past-employment at all, I suspect it’s just a matter of courtesy. I have always done it perfunctorily for mortgage applications.
Not too surprising, the unemployment commissions are charged with approving or not approving unemployment, they aren’t concerned about other things. While it’s only happened a few times in a decade, I’ve learned to only contest unemployment claims when it’s someone that voluntarily left, that’s usually easy to prove and they’ll actually deny it for that. Technically if you fire someone for cause they aren’t eligible for unemployment, but at least in my experience demonstrating “for cause” to the unemployment board is much harder, and they are pre-disposed for rejecting the claim and awarding the unemployment in those situations.
I get out of jury duty anytime I’m asked, since my business requires me for its operation. Just my luck, I’d love to do jury duty.
I’ve never fired anyone, never had to pay UC!
If you don’t do it, then there’s a good chance that your employee doesn’t get approved for their loan, which could suck for them.
I like happy employees.
Yeah, I fired an employee for excessive absenteeism a while back. They filed unemployment. I sent enough paperwork that I had to use a second stamp, showing her scheduled times vs her actual punches, along with documentation that showed that she had been counseled on our attendance policy, and continued to violate it.
They still approved her claim.
Sure, but there’s a lot of things about running a business that don’t seem right to me, and I just gotta take my lumps. Why do I pay self-employment tax? Shouldn’t I be rewarded for running my own business? My taxes take many hours more to get together, I pay $750 to my accountant every year to file them, and I have a very straightforward business. I have to deal with all sorts of paperwork I hate and don’t get paid for; I have to file quarterlies; if the government demands some sort of paperwork, I have to spend time researching it and providing it. Sure, “it doesn’t seem right” that I’m doing this all for “free,” but so what? That’s the way it is, I can try to change it (which I doubt I can), or I can grumble and complain about it, or I can just accept it and move on with my day, being thankful that I don’t have a boss and live a work-life balance lifestyle that most people would be jealous of. Perhaps I’m a fatalist in this sense, but it makes little sense for me to disturb myself too much about it. It also helps that I don’t find the rules particularly unfair or onerous.
Cool. You play that game, and I’ll point out the legal issues with the 13th Amendment’s prohibition of involuntary servitude.
So you can collect Social Security Benefits when you retire.
I know what it’s for, but it can seem a bit “unfair” because when I work for someone, it’s only half the self-employment rate (or maybe less than half.) Yes, because I employ myself, I pay both my half and the employer’s half, but it can feel unfair. (Though I personally don’t care.) When it comes tax time, it looks like my tax rate is higher than what it would be were I employed by someone else.
Yeah. We’ve had this discussed before.
The courts have repeatedly ruled in such ways that the prohibition in the 13th would be seen to apply to chattel slavery, serfdom, or indentured servitude — not to a court’s summons to testify, produce evidence or serve as juror.
Also, as to military service remember that theoretically, under the law ALL able bodied adult male citizens already are “the militia”. You can argue the draft is just calling them up as specified elsewhere in the Constitution.