I’m an independent contractor, paid monthly. I needed copies of my recent pay stubs for the court hearing to set child support. I’ve known, of course, that I wasn’t getting my pay stub with my check, but it wasn’t a concern until this. I checked with my manager, who says he keeps them for “this very reason” (I guess he means people needing copies; he didn’t elaborate), and he rather grudgingly ran copies for me.
I have copies of my bills (the amount the business owes me), but I don’t see how those could be considered proof of payment–I could easily submit, say, half of my bills and swear that I make much less income than I actually do. Or I could forge bills to make it look like I make MORE than I do. At any rate, is this legal? Can a manager remove one’s paystub? Do I have the right to request copies off all future paystubs, in the event that he insists on keeping them?
Thanks!
karol
If he needs copies, then he can avail himself of the corporation’s finance department’s assistance. If he’s merely transmitting money to you without providing you with a statement (aka “pay stub”) then he’s putting you in the position of not knowing if you’re getting paid correctly.
IMHO, he must be breaking at least two laws. I also believe you have the right to sue both him and the company over this.
His explanation is that because I receive copies of my bills, it’s up to me to keep track of my pay; in other words, my bills are my pay stubs, according to him.
Except that they aren’t, of course, because I don’t have any real proof that the payroll office issued me a check (unless I make copies), nor do I have proof that they don’t take out taxes or other withholdings, etc. And of course there is the issue of honesty–I certainly wouldn’t attempt to lie in court regarding my income, but it would sure be easy, wouldn’t it? All I’d have to do would be to submit a portion of my bills instead of the whole shebang. It seems like the office could find themselves in a peck of trouble over something like this.
Thanks for your response, Monty.
Sounds awfully fishy to me. I Thought paystubs were pretty much required by law, that they are the official record of wage payment. Other documents may show what was paid when, but the stub is the document of record. Right?
If you are not an employee how can he give you pay-stubs? Do you give pay-stubs when you pay the contractor who fixes your roof? No, you don’t, because he is not your employee. You are an independent contractor: you bill your customer and he pays you. It is your responsibility to keep your accounts and to declare your income, not his. That is part of being an independent contractor. Again: you are not his employee, you are an independent contractor.
dantheman, the independent contractor angle may affect the answer, which I must admit I don’t know. But paying a contractor is not exactly the same as paying an employee. If the contractor is working on a 1099 basis (as opposed to being incorporated), the employer provides a 1099 at the end of the year, and doesn’t do any withholdings. The contractor is responsible for paying quarterly estimated taxes, FICA, etc.
My above post assumes that you are, in fact, and independent contractor. If you are really an employee and are posing as an independent contractor for Income and Social Security Tax purposes, then the government would not like it when they found out.
There are rules which will determine whether you are one or the other. Some rules of thumb: If your boss tells you what hours to work, how to do your work, supplies you with the necessary things to do your wor, supervises you closely. . . you are an employee.
If you contract for the job and set your own hours, do the work as you see fit, provide your own tools,. . . you are an independent contractor.
I worked as an independent contractor for about 5 years, doing pet sitting. I never got pay stubs either, just a check every month, and at the end of the year a tax document listing how much I’d been paid for that year. A pay stub would have been pointless, since as an independent contractor, the company I contracted with had no responsibilities regarding paying taxes for me. In my situation, if I’d needed proof of income from that job and had not worked long enough to have received tax information for the year, I would have had to use my copies of all the contracts signed by the clients, which included the total cost of the service, add them together, and then divide by 2, as 50% of the cost of the service was paid to the company and 50% to me. Alternatively, one could make copies of one’s checks to keep track of how much is coming in.
Is he taking taxes out for you?
CookingWithGas, you’re right. If you’re a contract employee, the only records of your employment from week to week or month to month would be the bill you submit for hours worked and the 1099 at the end of the year, which I would think would have things broken down somehow (per month, per week, per activity).
Oh, I missed the independent contractor thing. For some reason, having worked in HR for a contracting company for a short while, I was thinking along the lines of you being an employee of a contracting company since you referred to the guy handing over the money as your manager. At least that’s my story for my posting above. 
Anyway, as an independent contractor, you are your employer. It is up to you to maintain your accounts and to transmit the taxes as approrpiate. You are also your manager; the individual you referred to above as your manager is your customer.