Report: Employee Misclassification Costs State Millions
Even during the depths of the national financial crisis, Texas led the country in home construction, and the industry employed more than 950,000 people in Texas.
But many in the industry say it is also a breeding ground for payroll and tax fraud, and rife with employers who knowingly misclassify their employees, a practice that perpetuates the hiring of illegal workers. Industry moguls and researchers discussed such issues Tuesday at the Capitol, addressing the results of a yearlong research project on conditions in the industry by the Workers Defense Project and the University of Texas at Austin's Division ...
Comments (16)
Penny Miller via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Enforce the rules already on the books.
Casey Bennett via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Enforce the laws we have on the books. Thats the easiest, simplest, and quickest way to get people to comply.
Richard S. Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Its not like they are going to receive the services that the payments are for...
Christine Lund
Not to mention the fact they keep their machinery on all day even when not in use, adding more poison to the air we breathe so they can get a credit of some sort. All that fuel and poison for a credit????
Katie Martinez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Give them a path to citizenship. They would gladly pay all kinds of taxes if they weren't afraid it could lead to their deportation. This is slightly misleading though because it could lead someone to think no taxes are being paid on their income. If the contractor "pays them under the table" and does not report the paid wages, the contractor is taxed on those wages as income and he pays them.
Christine Lund
Penny, if the government always did the right thing, minimum wage would be $26 an hour. Dream on!
Christine Lund
I'd love to see one immigration raid of our road workers if they think all the workers are legal. And I doubt if they get to see all the money they are owed. Someone is pocketing something somewhere. One more reason to keep government jobs and stop using contractual agreements to care for our prisoners and mental health patients. These are governmental responsibilities. The problem is that the 'powers that be' arrange things to their comfort and profit. Killing funding for necessary regulatory oversight is the easiest way to keep us in the dark. Abusing prisoners and mental health patients is easy too. Abusing women, another easy target. But helping the workers in any way . . .
Mac Mcclure via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The good thing is they pay sales tax no matter how they got the money. Remember Texas does not have an income tax.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No pathway to citizenship. Give them temporary work status which would be renewable but not citizenship as the penalty for breaking the law for coming into the country illegally. This way they can work and be productive and not live in fear. They can come out of the shadows. But there must be consequences for their actions. Employers need to be held accountable for hiring illegals.
Kathryn Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Many of these illegal or misclassified workers' have employers who take 'taxes' out of their already low wages...these taxes go right back into the pockets of the employers...
Tom Sweazea via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Replace the GOP-TP idiots and make us a proud state again...
Raymond Lewis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Interesting article but as we all know, provides no new information. The issue Kathryn mentions is well known as well. Not sure from this article, why subcontractors are not held accountable for payroll taxes as is the primary employer. Subcontractors should at least be required to pay payroll tax based on number of personnel (if not by name) and on an average salary of that aggregate.
Rudy Miller via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Many of these individuals have also created identity theft and using a false ssan. Illegal is illegal - do not offer a path to citizenship and clarify the "anchor baby" status. No right to stay!
Meme Me
How are these big employers getting away with this? They have thousands of employees who are are all classified as 1099 contractors. No witholding is taken out and the employees are supposed to file their own tax return and pay the IRS what they owe..... Just like Americans workers who are self employed.Right? So these 1099s are mailed out to any address, a vacant lot....what a joke. They do it this way because they don't want to report witholding and social security to our federal government. What needs to happen is that our laws need to be enforced against these criminal employers. HEB, Williams Bros, Bob Perry..Perry Homes etc...who broker with human traffickers to supply them with a steady flow of chain gangs.
gypsy314 ne
Fire the whole lot and send someone to jail should be the answer. We have enough crooks in government today just look at Obama and crew.
dan g
If anyone wants to see the study, here it is http://constructioncitizen.com/sites/default/files/Build%20a%20Better%20Texas.pdf