Dad's a Carpet Lying Crook

My 19 year old son works for his father in Indiana as an assistant floor installer. My ex-husband is the Subcontractor. My ex has made my son put the paycheck in my son's name in order to avoid paying me the correct amount of child support. He said the IRS cannot find out what he makes this way. He also plans on claiming my daughter on taxes even though I have had sole custody for eleven yrs. and we live in Florida. My son told me he just found out that they are operating without a license and without insurance. Since taxes are not taken out he is worried that he is going to be stuck paying the IRS at the end of the year. They make 2000.00 weekly, I receive 50.00 in support. Today my son informed me that his father or the Business American Carpet Galleries in Ft. Wayne, Indiana has forged his name to an alleged insurance form, he swears he never signed anything. My son attempted to let the Carpet store know he no longer wanted to have the check payable to him, but they told him there was nothing they could do until the end of the year. They did tell my son that he would be responsible for paying taxes on the all the checks received since he worked for 9 weeks and received the monies in his name. My ex was also receiving unemployment benefits for the same period as well as working as a Subcontractor. I s there something my son can do? He is worried and not too bright in the hands of this Master Manipulator. Is there something I can do or someone I can contact to make aware of the situation?

barbiedoll_45 said:

My 19 year old son works for his father in Indiana as an assistant floor installer. My ex-husband is the Subcontractor. My ex has made my son put the paycheck in my son's name in order to avoid paying me the correct amount of child support. He said the IRS cannot find out what he makes this way. He also plans on claiming my daughter on taxes even though I have had sole custody for eleven yrs. and we live in Florida. My son told me he just found out that they are operating without a license and without insurance. Since taxes are not taken out he is worried that he is going to be stuck paying the IRS at the end of the year. They make 2000.00 weekly, I receive 50.00 in support. Today my son informed me that his father or the Business American Carpet Galleries in Ft. Wayne, Indiana has forged his name to an alleged insurance form, he swears he never signed anything. My son attempted to let the Carpet store know he no longer wanted to have the check payable to him, but they told him there was nothing they could do until the end of the year. They did tell my son that he would be responsible for paying taxes on the all the checks received since he worked for 9 weeks and received the monies in his name. My ex was also receiving unemployment benefits for the same period as well as working as a Subcontractor. I s there something my son can do? He is worried and not too bright in the hands of this Master Manipulator. Is there something I can do or someone I can contact to make aware of the situation?

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Your son can contact the department of labor in whatever state he's in.

barbiedoll_45 said:

My 19 year old son works for his father in Indiana as an assistant floor installer. My ex-husband is the Subcontractor. My ex has made my son put the paycheck in my son's name in order to avoid paying me the correct amount of child support. He said the IRS cannot find out what he makes this way. He also plans on claiming my daughter on taxes even though I have had sole custody for eleven yrs. and we live in Florida. My son told me he just found out that they are operating without a license and without insurance. Since taxes are not taken out he is worried that he is going to be stuck paying the IRS at the end of the year. They make 2000.00 weekly, I receive 50.00 in support. Today my son informed me that his father or the Business American Carpet Galleries in Ft. Wayne, Indiana has forged his name to an alleged insurance form, he swears he never signed anything. My son attempted to let the Carpet store know he no longer wanted to have the check payable to him, but they told him there was nothing they could do until the end of the year. They did tell my son that he would be responsible for paying taxes on the all the checks received since he worked for 9 weeks and received the monies in his name. My ex was also receiving unemployment benefits for the same period as well as working as a Subcontractor. I s there something my son can do? He is worried and not too bright in the hands of this Master Manipulator. Is there something I can do or someone I can contact to make aware of the situation?

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Oh good lord...this is a huge mess and this is not the first time that this forum has addressed a similar issue.

Your son is right to be worried, and you are absolutely right to be worried for him.

At 2000.00 a week, assuming that this has gone on for 9 weeks to date, and will go on to the end of the year, represents approximately 22 weeks of income.

That's 44,000 as a self employed person. Between federal income taxes, federal self employment taxes and state taxes, your son could be looking at a tax balance due that could be as high as 13,000.

The best advice I could give your son would be to immediately quit working with his father, to make it totally clear to the company that is paying the invoices that he is NOT involved, and to get an attorney involved to emphasize that to both the company and to his father.

Your son's whole future could be screwed up by this....he needs to get out and get away ASAP. The company lied to him when they told him that it couldn't be changed before the end of the year.

I DESPISE parents who do this to their children.

I know a 22 year old woman who has just now discovered that she is the 100% shareholder of an S-corp that her parents have been running, and has been since she was 5 years old. The IRS is after her for almost 1/2 million in taxes.

Luckily the agents believe the truth of the situation....

Get your son out of this NOW.

As far as your daughter is concerned, you claim her, even if dad gets there first (you won't be able to file electronically but you can still file a paper return)...dad will end up gettig slammed on that one too.

Take this very seriously. An IRS debt of this magnitude could ruin son's credit rating for over a decade & curtail his job opportunities.

Also have your son save a detailed paper trail of bank statements to prove that dad made him cash the earlier checks in son's name, but only let son keep $xx of the money. When he gets audited, he can explain what occurred & will have bank statements to back it up. I had a client who got into this mess with his fishing boat captain. Fortunately, my client had goos bank statements & the captain admitted what had gone on.

In fact, have son get his taxes done very early -- in January. Son should file a 1099-MISC to dad so that dad's income is reported to the IRS. Son could then just file a Schedule C reporting the gross income ($44,000), with the money paid to dad listed as a 'subcontractor' expense. That way, son pays taxes only on his income.

Son should also get a copy of the insurance form & inform the insurance company directly that he did not sign any insurance form & wants the policy voided retroactively.

If for some reason, son is too intimidated by dad to put a stop to this fraud, have son at least pay dad by check rather than cash. Then son will have cancelled checks to prove how much dad got during the last 3 months, which would be good evidence of how much dad got during the first 9 months of the year.

In order to do this, son will need dad's SSN. Dig out your old joint returns or court papers to find it. If you don't have it, tell son to find dad's old returns sometime when dad is out bowling.

Also, try to file early yourself, as your life will be easier if you beat ex to the IRS when claiming your daughter.

finally, son should consider putting a fraud alert on his credit rating, as I suspect dad has taken out a credit card or two in son's name.... Short of changing son's SSN, I'm not sure how to prevent this in future.