Local police dept or IRS ?
Being witness to embezzlement by boss - what do you do?
- Thread starter pezzy84
- Start date
Local police dept or IRS ?
Theoretically speaking of course.
Pertinent questions have not been answered. The word has meaning. The clown might be a complete scumbag, but advising LE contact, or worse IRS...............to the possible ruination of involved parties.
embezzle
Definition of embezzle in the Legal Dictionary by The Free Dictionary
legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com
Unless you are responsible for any of it make like Sgt Schultz and dummy up. Find another job if it bothers you that much.
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Yup. When they get thrown in cuffs, you don't want to be anywhere around.
How do you know these are "illegitimate purchases" ? CC statements give the transaction date, processed date, "store", and the amount.
I might send a anoymous letter to company president and accounting saying you feel there might be some "loose use" of company credit cards and suggest they do more thorough reviews.
There are company policies and IRS policies. If the guy buys a new refrig for his house that could not be remotely considered a business expense. However the company could allow him to buy a new refrig as a bonus or award (doubtful however) but the company would need to list it as employee compensation on his W2 to be in compliance with the IRS.
But I would not suggest you get personally involved and opt out like Sergeant Schultz.
There are company policies and IRS policies. If the guy buys a new refrig for his house that could not be remotely considered a business expense. However the company could allow him to buy a new refrig as a bonus or award (doubtful however) but the company would need to list it as employee compensation on his W2 to be in compliance with the IRS.
But I would not suggest you get personally involved and opt out like Sergeant Schultz.
My grandfather did whistle blow and forced out of Monsanto he worked at age 24-55 with a decent penision at least. It really made him sad.
So you have 2 choices here: quit and pretend you don't know anything about it, or be ready to quit if you are going to report this.
Thing about small company is, you won't get much accountability on management and ownership. Some people may still hate you for doing the right thing and lost their beloved leaders. I have seen this before (one of my uncle was a whistle blower) and the management get fired for similar incident, but the new manager isn't any better and just try to push out people who rock the boat.
Main thing is, do you have to sign any document that will get you in trouble later? or did you just overhear or saw something? If you have to sign anything absolutely do it after asking the higher up first, email and cc your boss, the accountant, owner for approval first, that's assuming you want to stay and near retirement. If you are young and just want to leave anyways just leave without signing those things.
Somehow Agricultural industry seems to have a lot of this corruption. This reminds me of The Informant movie about ADM and its price fixing. Funny how the upper management got little punishment but the "whistle blower" got a lot.
If this company is doing any kind of work for and charging the Gov't, then call it in to the waste, fraud and abuse hotline. They will investigate. If there is no such department within the company itself, then the embezzlement will probably continue by those who think they are smart and "untouchable".
There are Federal whistle blower laws. People sue companies big time for being fired for whistle blowing.
Yes and no.
There are lots of grey area like, if they give the more favorable work to someone else, or they just say you "meet expectation" instead of "exceed expectation", etc. Unconscious bias or "bad luck" is hard to prove.
I'm talking about in the context of this thread ... embezzlement. Fact is, there are laws about companies firing employees from whistle blowing, and many people have sued and won on cases where they whistle blew on fraud, embezzlement, etc and got fired for reporting it to the authorities.
I too am talking about in the context.
What if OP said it is but the owner concluded it is not, and he approves it? Then what is going to happen is someone may look bad. A lot of the time employees who notice these kind of things may also have other problem (say work performance), and are used as excuses to get them into performance improvement plan or bonus reduction. (I'm not saying OP is, but this could definitely happen)
Usually the rule of thumb is you don't trust authority and you report stuff when it is serious (say someone can get hurt or killed, or it is a huge amount of money, not someone ordering alcohol with lunch or "employee appreciation gift" over the allowed amount by a few hundred dollars), and be prepared you may want to leave afterward because of trust issue.
Only the OP can determine the validity and level of embezzlement. That doesn't matter anyhow, because regardless if the whistle blower is right or wrong for reporting it, there are Federal laws against them being fired for doing so. That was my point, not the off track side discussions. If the company makes up some excuses for the firing without documented proof to back it up, then the company will not win if the fired worker takes them to court for being fired.
I also have to use Concur and don’t like it.
OP has to decide if he wants to open a big can of worms…..
The said OP isn't directly connected to the said situation. Said person said this to the said OP. Hypothetically and all, said....
I quit a job when I realized that my boss and a co worker were each stealing thousands per month and billing the company. I was a temp hire engineer . And did not like any part of the situation. About a year after I left a local police detective called me and asked a bunch of questions. I told him all the dirt I saw and explained I could not just watch thousands in fraud going on.
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