Is this legal?

[justgamma]

I went to a legislative forum yesterday. The right-winger kept saying that Obama wants to soak it to the rich. (She owns a plumbing company) She complained that people complained about what she charges. (Maybe they wouldn't complain if they brought home more money?) Then she said that she was not going to impliment the new reduced taxes for her employees. Is this illegal? (if it's not, then it should be.)

[Donnachaidh]

1. I think the IRS should be notified. n/t

[Heidi]

2. I hope you got her name and the name of her business, justgamma.

There are many, many people who wouldn't even notice if there employer dared pull such a stunt. I personally would not be above calling the local newspaper just to make sure they got that person's remarks on record.

[justgamma]

4. Oh theres a record.

It went out live over the local radio and TV. They have tapes.

[Heidi]

7. If there's a transcript available,

I could encourage you to get one while it's still available. Thank you for telling us about this. I was a journalist in the US for two decades and people stand up in public meetings and spew sh!t like this a lot more often than the public knows or the media reports.

[angstlessk]

3. if her employees are smart they can demand she take out less taxes

whatever they do not get in their paychecks they will get in tax refunds...she wants people to take home more to pay for her services, but not HER employees??? sounds like she is an idiot!

[justgamma]

5. She's a puke. She's an idiot. n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. If she doesn't, they'll get the money back at the end of the year

in the form of a tax refund. But this plumber is stupid. You see, small businesses have to file 941 taxes, either monthly or quarterly, depending on the business volume. Part of the money that must be sent into the government is the amount of money withheld for Federal taxes. Since this plumber is not decreasing the amount of Federal taxes to withhold, she is, in effect, giving more money to the Feds than she needs to, which could cause a liquidity problem for her business. The only way she can get in trouble with the law is if she withholds money from paychecks but doesn't report that amount to the Feds on the 941 report or on the W-2 forms at the end of the year. Then she could be in deep trouble.

Of course, this is assuming that she does her own bookkeeping and doesn't use a software program with payroll updates, like Quickbooks. Rest assured that Quickbooks has already updated the taxes. And if she uses a CPA, that person will deduct the proper amount as well.

[glowing]

8. Yes, if she uses Quickbooks like most smaller businesses do for their

payroll, or some other type of program that is similar; they have already adjusted for the tax change.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. I've used Quickbooks for years

with two different companies, and this has been my experience. Most small business owners would rather let Quickbooks figure things like payroll for them because then they don't have to worry about liabilities--or audits. Liability and workman's comp insurance companies often require yearly audits--and when they hear you are using Quickbooks you can tell they are happy, because they know everything will be done in a particular way that's easy for them to check.

[Statistical]

9. It is not possible

The IRS determines witholding amounts (based on W-4)

If an employer withholds more or less it won't match and IRS will notify the employer.

Employers have to subit this once a qtr. So all she is doing is delaying the inevitable.

The penalties for incorrect withholding are "substantial".

Even if she implements this foolhardy scheme when she starts seeing non compliance fines in the range of $1,000 - $10,000 per employee she will quickly change her tune.

Her not changing withholding "because of Obama" would be no different than your boss tomorrow deciding the company is going to withhold 70% of your gross pay.

[gratuitous]

10. Unsurprisingly

She's just shooting her mouth off. Stupidly, she's also saying that in addition to withholding some of her employee's pay (to send to the wicked old government in payroll taxes), she's going to make her employer matching tax payment at the higher rate? Or is she going to screw her employees out of $20 every two weeks while paying the lesser amount when she sends her quarterly tax payments off?

Dimwit.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

12. Dimwit is right

her scheme will wind up costing HER money. Bet she doesn't do her own books by hand.

[Odin2005]

13. Why am I not suprised that a wing-nut is pulling such obvious BS?

Sounds illegal to me. :grr:

[NoPasaran]

14. Josephine the Plumber? n/t

[Ms. Toad]

15. Bottom line -

The employer has nothing to do with implementing reduced taxes.

The extra money in your paycheck is just a change in the withholding tables (how much is taken out of your check to pre-pay your tax bill) - what is taken out of your paycheck is NOT a tax reduction. The tables are used as a way of estimating how much you owe - and the tables themselves are being changed to reflect the fact that at the end of 2009 most people will owe less money because of a change in the tax laws - so less pre-payment is required to make the pre-payment match what is actually owed on April 15, 2010.

Basically, if your tax bill will be $1200 for 2009, and the current withholding tables have your employer taking out $30 a week, by the end of the year you will have pre-paid $1560, and be entitled to a refund of $360 ($1560-1200). The Obama administration has decided it would rather have you have the money in you pocket now, so it requested a changed the withholding tables, as well, so that only about $23.10 a week will be taken out. By the end of the year you will have pre-paid $1201.20, and be entitled to a refund of $1.20. (Calculations based on a whole year of taxes to simplify the explanation.)

The only thing that happens if this person doesn't implement the new withholding rates, is that the employees get a larger refund (or owe less) come April 15 because they would have pre-paid too much. There is nothing the employer can do avoid reducing the taxes for her employees - if they don't get less withheld now, they will get a bigger refund at the end of the year.

If she carries through on her threat, all they need to do to get around her is to submit new W-4 forms adjusting what is to be withheld.

(That said, it probably is illegal for her to ignore the new withholding tables - although I have not specifically checked.)

[AndyTiedye]

16. She is Probably Cutting their Pay By The Same Amount as the Tax Cut

That would be legal (if they don't have some kind of contract).

This is likely to do wonders for the morale at her company.
I'm sure she must be a real joy to work for.

[petronius]

17. Freeper-types enjoy making up these stories - like the one about firing the

employees with the Obama bumperstickers. It's among their top tough-guy fantasies (even for the wingers who don't actually own companies, manage people, or have jobs)...