wages and payslips

[keithya]

after with holding every employees pay slip for approx 3 months,i snooped around in the office and found mine. i get payed �380 every week net but last weeks pay slip says that i have earned �837.53.the company are refusing to give staff thier pay slips, coming up with excuses.when i found all of the staffs pay slips, they had a notice attatched to them,saying (DO NOT GIVE OUT). every pay slip of mine for the last 3 months,state that i have earned at least double than that of which i have signed for.are they obliged to pay me what is written on each pay slip. i have photo copied each one and then placed the origonals back where they belong. what do i do and will this affect me in any way

[dzug]

They are not obliged to pay you what is on the payslip if it is wrong.

Sounds very odd to me - either they are having dreadful problems with the payroll and can't get it right (so can't give the payslips out), or something very fishy is happening. Given that it's 3 months I'd incline to the latter.

[CheekyChops]

I agree with dzug, something very fishy is going on, a definate fiddle of some sort.. Are you in a union?

[badgerchops]

What i would be concerned about is the tax and NI purposes. If they are notifing the inland revenue that you are earning �43,254 a yr rather than half of that then this is a concern. Firstly i would call the National Insurance helpline. Ask them if they can let you know if your NI stamp has been paid over the last 3 months. Their number is 0845 302 1479. Give them your NI number. if it has been paid, check the amount they received from your employer. You can compare that then to the payslip and the BACS amount received (after deductions).

Also, do they do their own payslips or do they use a payroll outsourcing company. i.e Ceridian Centrefiel for example ? (is in in-house basically?)

Let me know what NI helpline say and i will let you know what to do next...

[Mrs_Pegasus]

More to the point, what are you suppose to earn? I think it could be a problem with the system, you dont sound surprised that you havent received the �837.53. I rarely open my payslip because its the same each month, I can understand if you are paid by the volume or additional hours and are expecting more but I cant see anything fishy with this based on what you are saying.

[themas]

There is definitely something very odd if none of the staff have been given payslips for the last 3 months. I would definitely be concerned about what tax & NI the employer is paying over to HMRC.

Were you given payslips before then? If so, did you accept that the amount on the payslip was your correct pay? Was the amount anything like the �837, or was it more like the �380? If it was around the �380 mark does anything lead you to think the �837 figure is right? Do all the payslips you found show figures way above what you are getting, or is it just the one? What does your contract say your pay should be?

[NiceCupOfTea]

They sound like they are either a) boosting up the size of their business expenditure (i.e. wages) for tax avoidance or b) covering the tracks of people being paid on the side by pushing up the wages that they do declare or c) money laundering. Beware of getting caught, as they will not be happy with you.

As said, ring up the Revenue and ask them for a current total of what's been paid to your National Insurance Number. Unless they are actually paying the correct amount of tax you could get well and truly done over for any shortfall. Plus if the Revenue has you down as a higher earner they'll be expecting self-assessment tax returns from you and you'll get fined for not submitting them.

How many employees are there in the company, by the way?

[buildersmate]

Do you work for the same organisation as this guy? He used a name - which may, of course be a pseudonym.

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Business-and-Fi nance/Question335375.html

[ummmm]

They are probably banking the rest as a little bonus. looks like they are just keeping it out of the higher tax band so you don't receive a bill for under paid tax

[WendyS]

Do you know who the company's auditors are and when they last filed their annual company accounts?

It does sound very strange to me that your pay slips are not being handed out on a monthly basis. I can't speculate why, unless they are either in difficulties with their payroll or having financial problems of some kind.

However, if there is something untoward happening maybe you should (anonymously) get in touch with the auditors and alert them to your fears, if you can find out who they are..

[Harley]

It may be that your employer uses a finance company to fund the "wages". By inflating the gross pay they can borrow more than they should.

Many temporary staff agencies use these services but there are some loan companies that will lend the wage bill to ordinary businesses for 6 weeks providing you keep up with the repayments.

The problem gets worse as time goes on because if they can't find the money to pay the first wage advance they have to inflate the wage bill even higher to get more cash to meet the repayment.

Hope it's not the case, anyhow you can't be held responsible. You could contact your local tax office and report your concerns