Via KTBS:Bad news for Bossier Parish Sheriff's Office employees right before the holidays.
Today, they learned that the because of problems with how their salaries were reported to the IRS, they actually owe the government money. Bossier Sheriff Larry Deen says a computer formula error has been discovered in the department's payroll system.
This error caused not enough state and federal taxes to be withheld from employees pay checks. Early estimates indicate the financial impact on the department will be approximately $689,000. Some employees owe as much as $1,000.
KTBS 3 News has learned that the employees were told in a meeting today that they have to two options for repayment.
Employees can reimburse the government in one lump sum by December 5, or have the make installments payments. Those payments will come with a penalty attached.
What terrible news right before the holidays.
Somebody needs to get fired and somebody needs to make this right.
Update: And from The Times? No raises either! Bah, Humbug!:
“We have already made changes to the payroll system and made payroll adjustments for employees that will not cause any extra expense to the taxpayers of Bossier Parish. This is a very unfortunate mistake that means there will not be any Bossier Sheriff’s Department pay raises for 2012. This is being done in order to offset the financial impact to the department and taxpayers,” said Deen.
Merry Christmas.
Update 2: This from The Bossier Press:
The error was programmed in a decade ago, but the office will only be responsible for making payments in 2008, 2009, and 2010 due to the IRS only being able to pull records for the past three years.
This totals an approximate amount of $689,000 to be paid.
.....
The office stressed no law has been violated, pointing out the error went unnoticed by state auditors for years.
....
Sheriff's Office employees are to pay 10 percent to the pension system. The error was, essentially, the under withholdings were read as tax deferred income instead of taxable wage.
The mistake was found by a department accountant who studied her own payment slips.
And please check the comments; from Anon 1:33:
The "installment plan" is taking a 2% pay cut for the next 12 months. For many who can't pay the lump sum with 10 days notice, this is the only other option. The bad news is a 2% pay cut has almost doubled what some employees have to pay back. A fairly new deputy who hired on at $45,000.00 a year owes $600. 2% of 45,000.00 is $900.00. How is that even close to right? And it's "too time consuming" to adjust each employees salary to reflect their lump sum so 2% across the board is all you get.
Good grief. I'll be following this and updated as more develops, and I'm sure more will develop. While it sounds innocent enough, I have a nagging suspicion that there is more here than meets the eye. An investigation is definitely in order.
My Bossier is following this, too. He has some interesting comments as well.
Keep checking back.
9 comments:
My first thought is no way the employees should have to pay any penalties. That lies squarely on the sheriff's office for not deducting and remitting properly. I doubt that very many deputies can pay back the amount owed before December 5th. They should be given several months to make payments, some of them live from payday to payday to extra job.
Yes, I know that means the taxpayers foot the bill for penalties. So be it.
Agree with your sentiments Jim except for "taxpayers pay the penalties". Screwing the taxpayer over doesn't make it better. NO penalties should be owed and give them a reasonable time to pay back the mistakes........ after the holidays.
Well if there wasn't so much wrong doing, they wouldn't have to pay the consequences. Do right and that's the bottom-line.
There is more to the story than what you have heard. I don't have anymore to say about it.
It is "more than" a jokingly computer glitch.
When you hire in-laws or a friend of Uncle Joe's instead of people who are truly qualified to do the job, this is what you get.
Anon at 7:18 - The penalties are owed to the IRS, nothing can be done about that. Just a question of whether the employees have to pay for a mistake they didn't make.
The "installment plan" is taking a 2% pay cut for the next 12 months. For many who can't pay the lump sum with 10 days notice, this is the only other option. The bad news is a 2% pay cut has almost doubled what some employees have to pay back. A fairly new deputy who hired on at $45,000.00 a year owes $600. 2% of 45,000.00 is $900.00. How is that even close to right? And it's "too time consuming" to adjust each employees salary to reflect their lump sum so 2% across the board is all you get.
How is it that an agency that has tax collection as one of its functions make such a error when it concerns taxes that should have been collected from its employees? It does raise questions about ethics. Bossier Parish and Bossier City have a long history of hiring friends and friend of friends regardless of qualification. This is proof that nepotism and cronyism does more harm in the long run.
They keep using the term 'under-withheld'. According to the PT article, they were 'under-withheld' because the amount of taxable income was misrepresented. For 10 years. If the IRS could go back the entire time, the liability would likely be around $2,000,000.
To be clear, the sheriff's office reported incorrect amounts for income on 1099's, for every employee, for 10 years. This is mind boggling. Is there no oversight whatsoever? Are there no in-depth audits to catch this sort of thing?
10 years? I plan to address it more (a lot more), but I have to talk to a couple of people and mainly just try to wrap my mind around the magnitude of this.
It is unbelievable.
I am a current employee of the BSO. We were told by the Sheriff "This is a Christmas Bonus, Just kidding..." What a terrible joke. He had the audacity to state the breaking this news to us hurt him more than it hurt us. I saw deputies openly crying just at the thought of having to pay this money right before the holidays. We were told that we have 2 options of which neither was of comfort. Option A: Write a personal check to the BSO in the amount of the money that we were told we owed. Option B: have it with held from our pay checks over a period of time, but we would pay interest. The Sheriff also stated that the department was negotiating with the IRS to a sum of over $700,000. Yet every article I read only says $600,000. So who is being lied to? the public of his "Beloved Family" If we owe taxes to the IRS, Why don't we make the check to the IRS or even have the IRS take it out of our Tax refund (it we get one). Larry Deen also said that because of this error, the employees would not get a cost of living pay raise this year. (BTW he secretary makes over $100,000 hmmmm)The employees should not be held liable for this error, in fact there is insurance for just such a n incident that the sheriffs office is required to have. If the IRS say I was paid too much, Let me pay the IRS. I am responsible enough that I don't live pay check to pay check. I can pay the money that I was told I owed, but something just doesn't seem right about this. Oh also I can't help but wonder, "How can I trust these people that say I owe this amount of money that can't calculate our taxes correctly?"
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