Can't Go Exempt?

[commentator]

Thanks for your kind words all. OP, I sort of objected to someone so quickly blaming your situation on something so recent, I suppose. I spent a long time closing down businesses and working with those who were being laid off, WARN-ed, and otherwise, and believe me, it was happening long before now, before new health care laws, or even before WARN, which came in with the NAFTA treaty and the great sucking sound of all our small manufacturing businesses moving to Mexico and overseas. Some states elected to inact stricter WARN laws, where reporting was required for any closure or lay off of more than 50 people. The owners used to literally lock the doors of these small factories and the people would show up on Monday morning to a closed plant, and didn't, in many cases, receive their last paychecks, much less a severance package. It kept the Wage and Hour people hopping.

I know that was the old days, and it's very little consolation to know it is slightly better now, but most people who have not had such experiences think they have more rights and privileges in the workplace than they do. It's pretty important that we keep our eyes on what they can legally do to you.

anyhow, good luck with your separation experience, and hopefully you'll find something better very soon.

.

 

[justalayman]

Commentator ,

Can u educate me? I could not find the restriction on changing tax filing status after a WARN notice. Not disagreeing with you but just could not find it and that would be a valuable bit of info to put into my data storage unit and be able to back it up if questioned.


And just so you know, I don't think there is anything common about you. I've always thought of you as a special tater.

 

[commentator]

You know, I went through and reread the act myself, and I have to say it doesn't seem to be anywhere obvious. But I've seen so many companies refuse to do it...I guess I just assumed that they legally felt they could and still be in compliance with WARN. I've dealt with many people involved in plant closures and mass layoffs who tried to change their exemptions, etc. in those last few weeks and been refused. Don't know that I've seen any that were actually processed, though I guess it could have happened. I don't see much advantage in it, myself, as the taxes on these weeks wages will still be due at the end of the year, unemployment insurance is taxable income also, there's going to be some tax liability there, even if you feel you need the money at the front end. Especially in this case where the person is going to receive a severance package, I don't see a whole lot of benefit.

The insurance/COBRA issue doesn't come up until the person is actually off work. In cases where there has been 60 days pay in lieu of notice, the insurance deductions stay in place as they have been, and the insurance stays in place as well and must be provided to the employee as if there had been notice and 60 days of actual employment. Likewise the number of exemptions, etc. is done at the same rate as they have been done before the announcement. I certainly don't know of anything that would prohibit them from doing what cbg said, being very very slow to process any sort of change like that, or refusing to process such a change "in a timely manner" unless it is in the tax codes somewhere. But I suppose the company is refusing because they don't feel that payroll has time to process these changes while dealing with all the other issues involved. Recalculating pay amounts and bonuses would be a pretty complicated issue if all 250 people wanted to do it.