Legal Question in Employment Law in Texas
This may seem a bit confusing. I was hired as a salary earning employee in Aug2008 for a company- which I quit in February2010. By Feb2009, they had run out of money and were "searching for an investor". We were promised that it would only be a month or two until things went back to normal. They asked that we all work on full commission, no salary, and file for unemployment. We kept insurance. I did not get unemployment. By April2009, I was pregnant, and therefore stuck in a job, as I needed the insurance. I was treated as an employee, did the same job I did from the beginning, plus more. Midsummer the 'HR' lady mentioned to us about going to Independent Contractor. She mentioned taxes and saving money, etc. I did not sign anything so I did not think things had changed. It is my understanding however that if you are working as an employee, required to do certain things by the business, then you are an employee, not contractor.
Fast forward to Aug2009- I see that insurance is ending Sept1st and ask HR lady. She says she took care of it already...I never signed anything. Mid-September2009 I find out that the insurance was cancelled months before, I was not covered, she was planning on hiding it from me, AND I was not eligible for COBRA for unknown reasons. I basically forced them to get me insurance since I was due to have a baby in Dec09/Jan10. This is about when I learned that I was classified as independent contractor, which did not make sense. I stayed for the insurance, was subjected to extreme emotional abuse from my boss and took maternity leave, not without conflict, in mid-December, one week before I had my daughter 2 weeks early.
I had my daughter right before Christmas. She should have been covered on my insurance for the first 30 days. This did not happen, because, without me knowing, they cancelled insurance at the end of December, 7 days after she was born. I confronted them, while on unpaid �maternity leave�, and they said �oh yea� we don�t have insurance anymore, so try not to go to appointments. I just had a baby and a c-section, so I had no choice but to go to doctor appointments for our health. I have emails saying that they would �try� to help pay my out of pocket expenses. I�ve now received letters from the doctor asking me to pay, and apparently for a December visit as well, and the company is now refusing to pay. My question is- can I report them for tax evasion? They tried to change all employees to independent contractors to avoid paying the taxes, the HR lady said this herself to me. I did not realize they were trying to cut corners until everything came out in the end.
Also, they own a Cayman company that I also �worked� for. I never signed anything saying I did, but I did do sales for them there, from Dallas. The owner paid me cash for my commissions earned from this company. I know they were not reported, but she would transfer this money to her account and then pay me, under the table I guess.
WHAT STEPS SHOULD I TAKE IN REPORTING THEM? I lost so much in wages/taxes when they switched me to independent contractor and they should not be doing business.
1 Answer from Attorneys
call the texas workforce commission or the US labor department..it sounds like a company that has no money, probably no insurance to cover such actions..and probably no way for u to recover...hopefully you were paid a good salary/commission..for what you did ..and it was productive