State Payroll Deduction Authorization Form: Fill & Download for Free

I don't know if there is any typical way to handle this.Clearly, if you hand them a check upon termination in the amount of your gross bonus paid (i.e. amount before tax), you have settled your debt obligation to them.This will leave you in an overpaid tax position, which you will get back when you file your tax return.In some states, it is illegal for the company to make a payroll deduction without your explicit authorization (even though they have a contract that says they're entitled to a reimbursement of your sign-on bonus), barring any payroll garnishment orders.When you turn in your resignation letter, my advice would be to talk to your payroll department (not HR) to see how to best settle your debt obligation. They may simply have you sign a payroll deduction authorization form (and you write a check for the remaining balance, if your last check is not enough to cover the entire debt).This is a pretty easy transaction. In my view, you don't need a lawyer to handle this.

Unless you had the employee sign a payroll deduction authorization form when you released the equipment to him or her, do not withhold pay in an attempt to recover the property. Even then, be careful not to reduce pay below minimum wage. Also check state laws where the employee is located to make sure you aren’t violating anything there.Your only option really is to pursue legal action. You may be able to sue in small claims court.

As a general rule, absolutely not.I had an occasion a day or two ago to compare the labor laws of Texas versus Oregon. I was surprised how different they were, and that changed my mind about how I would approach situations like this.Let’s take an example. I used to run a concrete plant. In addition to manufacturing and delivering concrete, I also ran internal haul trucks, which would go off to quarries to pick up rock, sand, and other inventory, which I would keep on the yard as inventory for concrete production or for direct resale to the public.Once, and only once, I had a concrete mixer truck driver who got a traffic ticket for not wearing his seatbelt. That is a criminal offense, and the payment of fines, assessed due to criminal offenses, are unallowable deductions in the context of tax accounting.A company or corporation can list these as business expenses, so that they affect the various financial statements we produce, but you cannot use those expenses when you report your taxable earnings to the IRS. Besides, in this case, not wearing a seatbelt was a traffic made out to the driver, not to the corporation.By virtue of that, the corporation wasn’t even involved in or implicated by this ticket. — The driver, though, proceeded to ask me if I would authorize a payday loan for him, so that he could pay off the ticket (because he was guilty), but he wouldn’t have to feel the brunt of the financial hardship in just one week.He said, “Just take it out of my paycheck, but PLEASE! — not just one.”—OK. So let’s say the ticket was for $100. I would write out a check to the local court with jurisdiction over the matter, to settle the matter, and I would assess this liability (on behalf of the driver) to an asset account, owned by the company (i.e., “Due from Drivers”).Before doing that, I would write up a formal contract between the company and the driver that would basically say: “In order to facilitate <insert driver’s name> payment of his traffic ticket of <insert date>, and for his benefit, to alleviate the financial burden of having to expend the full amount of the fine at one time <insert amount>, <insert company/corp. name> agrees to make the payment on his behalf, in full, and <insert his name> agrees to reimburse the company, via weekly payroll deductions of <insert fractional amounts>, until the debt is paid off in full.” …Let me stop there to say that the company can charge interest on this loan. So, the next line could be, “In order to compensate <insert company name> for this trouble, <insert driver’s name> agrees to pay a fee of <insert amount>, and the loan will carry an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of <insert some % rate>.”Another common thing to do would be just to add one extra payment of the same amount. For instance, if the ticket was for $100, and the driver agreed to pay that back in four equal payments, then you’d have four payments at $25/each. → In order to establish an undeniable quid pro quo, which is very important for legally enforceable contract-writing, you might say this: “The amount of the ticket that <insert company name> will pay to the Court is $100. <Insert driver’s name> agrees to reimburse, and pay an additional amount, in five equal weekly installments, the amounts of $25, which will total $125. When $125 has been received by the company, the loan will be repaid in full.”—While it’s the right of any lender to require some interest rate (and there is an implied [effective] interest rate in the second option listed immediately above) to be paid for its services to anyone, including its employees, I’ve often written in, as a courtesy: “The requirement to pay this interest, or the additional equal payment, will be forgiven by the company, and become null and void, should <insert employee’s name> repay the company according to the term set out in this Contract. However, if the employee fails to repay all the monies owed to the company within the term listed herein, the company, in general, will require the employee to follow all covenants of this Contract, including the promise to pay the accrued interest or additional payment(s).”This is a motivational strategy employed by a manager or executive. — It shows that the company cares about the employee, and that goes a long way. $100 may be nothing to the company, but the difference between making a car payment on time, or a mortgage payment, or buying school uniforms, etc.But, there is an issue here if you want to start talking about payroll deductions.Imagine that you, as the employee above asked you to do (i.e., make payroll deductions to satisfy this contract), make one payroll deduction, which you are sure is legal; however, then, on that same day, your assistant brings you the mail, and inside it is a notice from the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), ordering you to take out a certain amount for child support.OK. I’m just choosing simple numbers to work with here.—Suppose the employee’s takehome (after-tax; “disposable earnings”) is always $400/week.The OAG, now, has ordered you to garnish his paycheck in the amount of $200/week for child support.→ In the fine print of the OAG order, you notice that the amount you garnish cannot be more than 50% of the employee’s takehome pay. So, $200/$400 = 0.5 = 50%. You’re good for that week; however, if the employee makes less than $400/week for some reason, you will not be able, under the law, to take out the full $200 ordered, which is fine for you. It makes the employee go into arrears, but that’s none of your business.However, the dang loan agreement (i.e., payday advance) you made out, viz. the traffic ticket, may now cause a problem.Likely, each State has some percentage threshold beyond which you will not be able to garnish; and, you are now getting closer and closer to that threshold because of the unanticipated child support garnishment order.Some States don’t allow you to withhold from paychecks amounts that go toward employee loans — at all. All such withholdings are proscribed.That varies! — You better know what your State law is.Maybe it sucks for employers, because making payroll deductions are often easier than this other modus operandi, but if you choose to approach the situation in this way, you should be all in order.In the Contract, require that the employee go cash his check and then bring you the money that he owes per the Contract for that week.Perhaps, you give him his paycheck, and then he gives you a personal check. Or, if he doesn’t write checks, then he could open up his wallet, before or after going to the bank to cash his paycheck, and pay you your $25, or whatever amount he wants to pay, so long as it equals, or is in excess to, what he is required to pay then per the Contract.Nothing passes through payroll. You will never make any payroll deductions viz. these loans, so you stay out of the ire of the labor department and don’t run afoul of the law.The drawback is, of course, if the employee leaves before paying back the loan, you cannot garnish the amount from his final paycheck. — Just, as a side note, many employees quit upon being told the OAG has found them again; some people float around, like some heartless bubble, from one place to another, working until the Attorney General finds them, and hoping that this new employer will not follow the law and report its new hires to the OAG.The recourse to the company, at that point, would be to sue the employee; who, considering he no longer has a job, probably has no money to pay you, even if you win the lawsuit, which is not a given.As a direct answer to the question asked, the answer is no. — I have one more short example.I had a haul truck driver who was in just-good-enough health to maintain his medical examiner’s certificate (i.e., “health card”), which signified that some physician or practitioner thought he was safe to drive under the DOT/Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s safety guidelines. — That was the basic green light for me to let him drive. Without evidence to the contrary — that he was unsafe to drive these tractor-trailer combinations — it would have been age discrimination to disallow him his right to drive and earn a living.He drove, usually every day, for about eight hours, picking up inventory for the plant. This was the same route, day in and day out (given no construction/detours). On that route, in a particular city, there was a particularly hairy intersection. The city knew it was infamously difficult to navigate, so it installed red-light cameras so as to capture a picture of the driver, and a picture of the license plate, which would prove that the driver was driving through a red light. — I think these tickets were $75.This is a different situation from before. These tickets were made out to the person or entity who owned the truck, not to the driver. So, I, on behalf of the corporation, would receive notices that we owed this money because the driver had run a red light.We could’ve appealed the decision, because no actual officer of the law saw the infraction occur in real-time; they just reviewed the video footage at their leisure; and, as you can guess, almost 100% of the time, found in favor of the State and issued the ticket. — I think they had to list their name as the person who reviewed the evidence, but they were not signing the citations, because they were not there on scene.It was a funky program.During the last term of the Texas State Legislature, these red-light camera programs were made illegal. Of course, they were made possible by legislation by the legislature and signature of the governor. However, now, that policy has been reversed, by the legislature and the governor, and you cannot get a traffic citation by a computerized camera system’s printout.Nonetheless, that is now, and this was then. So, we’ll get back to it.As I said before, no person, company, or corporation can expense a payment made to fulfill an obligation to a Court because you, your employee, or anybody affiliated with you — has committed a crime and been found guilty. These are unallowable deductions, meaning — as far as the IRS goes — they do not exist; they do not reduce your tax basis (and, therefore, potential tax liability).This time, the citation came to the company. — If the driver, who had not been wearing his seatbelt, had refused to pay the ticket, well — that would have been on him. If the fine increased, or if they took away his CDL, that was his problem.This time, it was very different. — If we refused to pay the citation, then we would be in trouble, and the driver was immunized.This causes financial and economic harm to the company, and you can’t force an employee to pay you back. — No, you most certainly should not, by law, recover these lost funds by making payroll deductions.You certainly can tell the driver that you expect him to reimburse the company for his actions. You have to be careful, though.If you say something like: “Well ‘Joe’, it appears that you are running red lights and so you are an unsafe driver. Unless you reimburse us, we’ll have to terminate your employment.”Just think about what you just said: “You’re unsafe unless you hand over some cash.”Not a very smart comment. — You’re not going to win an unemployment appeal with that on your record.You might say: “Joe, you’ve been with the company for several years. I feel like you are a safe driver. These red-light cameras are a joke, but for the moment, they are the law, so I’m in a really bad situation. I can’t pay for drivers’ traffic citation fines. I can’t deduct them from my taxes, so it’s literally just me paying money out of my pocket, and it makes it where I might as well use a trucking company.“I could just stop my current practice of employing haul truck drivers to get inventory and materials for me using our own trucks. I can just sell the trucks, and I’ll get everything I need from a bigger trucking operation. Then, if one of their drivers gets a traffic citation, then it’ll be on them, and the cost of my materials brought in will stay the same. The company will never be held responsible for what their drivers do, so I will always know the cost of my materials.“That’s an option I’ve always had, but I like having our own haul truck drivers. It allows me to offer more jobs locally, and — of course — I think we get it done cheaper than what some trucking company would be charging me. — But, that’s not true if, almost once a week, I’m getting traffic citations because you can’t stop for a red light.”—It was true. I can remember one week in which he got a red light citation two days in a row!—The implication of that speech, above, is that his job was now imperiled, as were the jobs of other drivers, because of what he was doing. So, I might have to terminate him for cause.Immediately, he said: “Well, just take that money out of my paycheck, but can you take it out in partial payments? If you hit me all at once with it, then I may not be able to buy all the medications my wife needs, and I need. You see, she isn’t eligible for social security yet.”Lord knows, I knew he had some health problems. And, as many caring men are, they will go without their own medications in order to get those needed by their spouses (and children).I had a guy who was younger than I was. We were both 30-ish. He told me that he was going without his blood pressure medication because his wife was disabled due to a car accident; they had three kids; and, he’d been out of a good-paying job for a while.He’s the youngest person I’d ever seen who had all false teeth. All of his permanent teeth had been pulled by around age 30! — And, this was not because of drug use. — It was because he couldn’t afford crowns or root canals. If something went wrong with a tooth, he just had the dentist pull it, as that was the cheapest option.Even though he was a new hire, I offered him, upon hearing that, a payday loan; within reason, he could tell me what he needed, and I’d get it for him. — He declined. He was very proud.He’d rather just go without his blood pressure medication than receive a loan from a virtual stranger. — This wasn’t about asking for a loan. It was about just being okay receiving a loan. — One of the strangest things I’ve ever seen; tells you something about the human condition/situation.Anyway, the guy who kept getting the red-light camera tickets asked to have payroll deductions made. This meant, of course, again, it would be as if the company were issuing him a loan, and then he just wanted the money taken out of his check in partial payments until they were all paid off.If I knew he was not making much money (e.g., it was January and the roads were too icy; the quarries were closed), I would defer his loan repayment with or without him having to ask me to do it. — In a way, I was complying with the labor laws without even knowing exactly how they applied to these situations. Just because I had a proverbial heart. — I cared whether he could buy his inhalers; less did I care if he could buy his cigarettes.These are stories from the first time I was a CFO. So much to learn, and I did my best.Today, I would not do payroll deductions that originated from internal company affairs (i.e., employee loans). I would do the Contract, but stipulate in there that the employee would need to make his payment, check or cash, on payday. So, he could go to the bank and cash the check, and then he could bring the payment in, and then it would be recorded.This would be true for discretionary loans, and for loans that dealt with someone’s negligence harming the company.Doing payroll deductions helps employees, because they don’t have to drive off to some bank and then drive back to find you before you leave for the day. But, that appears to be the way the law wants us to operate, and I don’t want to run afoul of some labor law and get fined, lest I find myself proverbially having to pay back the company for my foolish behavior!Recovery of employee-caused (e.g., negligent) losses, by a person/company/corporation, is a complicated issue. You cannot deduct these losses from employees’ paychecks without their permission (i.e., “authorization”); and, even if you have their authorization, you may still be afoul of the labor laws: local, State, or federal.It’s best to talk the matter over with the employee, or employees, involved, and then figure out an arrangement both parties can agree to; write that up into a legally binding contract; and, then, have the once-negligent employees bring in their repayments, on their own, and without you doing anything in the form of payroll deductions, which will be considered to be outside their direct control even if they are standing behind you when you make them.At least, in some States. → Don’t do it in Oregon!