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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Law & Legal |
Business law? |
An employee who is married and has two children submits a W-4 form to his employer indicating that he is single and claims zero deductions. Is this action ethical, unethical, or illegal? Explain your reasoning. It's neither unethical nor illegal to claim zero deductions. There is no law requiring you take all of the exemptions available to you. It may be illegal/unethical to falsely claim to be single. . It is not against the law, by claiming 1/0, the tax man will take more money for the gov, then when it's time to file, he will have money coming back. not the best way to make money, but he will not have to write a check to pay the balance of taxes owed. unethical and illegal due to the fact you are not suppose to lie especially on a government form It isn't illegal it is actually ok from time to time. The tax many always gets his money. If a person wished to take their taxes out of a different account or pay them from some other means, it is ok. This system is used for your benefit so that your taxes are taken out a little at a time. The other issue is if you are poor and you aren't going to have to pay taxes in the end, this way you don't have to bother with extra paper work. Your wages are always generally reported with your social security number especially if you are recieveing federal/local foodstamps, assistance. They put a flag on your SSN. Things always come around it isn't unethical, it would be unethical to than not pay your taxes at the end. On the W-4 form, there are places to indicate the deductions you want, and a section that is a "worksheet" to calculate your deductions. There is also a check box to indicate "Married but use single" type of deductions -- my husband and I take out at the higher single rate because the married rate uses a calculation assuming that there is only one wage earner in a family. The unethical portion would come in if you lied on this firm and indicated "single" instead of "married filing single" -- or if you filled out the worksheet and didn't fill out the options. I don't know about the legality of this. Ethical. An employee is free to claim whatever tax exemptions s/he wishes so long as the tax obligations to the government are appropriately fulfilled. This gentleman will most likely end up paying more tax that he would otherwise have owed and would be entitled to a refund at the end of the tax year. Unethical would be if an employee were single and lied about marital status in order to claim benefits such as medical and dental care for otherwise ineligible dependents. Have fun in law school. :) |
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