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Do not ask employees to ever break any laws. Never ask employees to violate regulations, illegally avoid taxes or perform any acts against current federal, state or local laws. One would think this is a given rule for all companies but it is not; when a company refuses to pay overtime premium to its employees (against federal law), or pays employees simultaneously through payroll and accounts payable as a vendor (avoiding employer matching FICA taxes, FUTA and SUTA taxes). The payables payments are not allowed to employees except for reimbursement checks. Employees should not be paid through payroll and accounts payable; payroll only along with all of the mandated taxes that accompany wages.
Examples of ways companies break laws or force their employees to break laws (significant or not):
- Companies terminate employees and then refuse to pay earned wages to its employees for time worked, which forces the employees to go to local labor boards to file wage complaints.
- Companies hurt employees on machines or equipment and pay the bills without turning in the accident to avoid future workman’s compensation rate increases against state laws.
- Companies instruct their accounting employees to avoid paying sales taxes on purchases or declare purchases tax exempt when they are not. When in doubt, hire experts to evaluate your purchases in order to follow the law.
- Companies request employees to drive company vehicles that carry no current automobile or truck insurance or to drive with illegal emissions equipment installed, overweight trailers or truckloads, missing stickers, etc.
- Companies sometimes ask employees to drive company vehicles that do not have current registration stickers or have out of state stickers that by law must be replaced with in state fee paid stickers (various law cutoffs).
- Companies request their employees to drive company vehicles with expired registrations or trucks or trailers that need safety maintenance.
- Companies do not clear shelves and expect employees to sell expired food or drug items to the public with no notice.
- Companies expect employees to falsify insurance loss reports and state more was lost than was truly owned by the company.
- Companies pay employees occasionally as contractors deducting no taxes and not matching any taxes as an employer. Both the companies and the employees like this payment method but both are breaking the state and federal laws.
