The most recent mistake I found was at my part-time job. They were taking out Kansas City, MO city income tax. Since I don’t live or work in Kansas City I shouldn’t be paying that tax. I guess since most of their employees live in Kansas City they just automatically take the city tax out. Or it may have been based on zip code since the address I used for that job has a zip code that includes both Kansas City and a suburb of Kansas City.
Fixing the problem wasn’t too difficult. I just called the payroll department and explained the problem. They then told me they would fix my checks so that the tax was no longer taken out and refund the tax that had already been taken out. I received that check today and they did fix it correctly.
The city income tax was only 1% but that adds up after a while and I need the money more than the city. This advice can also apply to your monthly bills, credit card statements, bank statements, and similar items that can cost you money if they are not figured correctly.
Have you ever found a mistake on your paycheck? Was it in your favor or theirs?
It’s happened to me a few times, but from what I can remember was never in my favor. I remember the first time I got a bonus thinking they had made a major error, then I got to learn about how the government takes out more on bonuses. 🙁
Yeah, the bonuses get taxed heavily. They don’t end up being near as much as you expect.
I haven’t found any mistakes in my paycheck but at one small company I worked for, I logged into my 401(k) plan website and saw that they had not deposited the money withheld from our checks into the plan for one of the pay cycles. I alerted the office manager and he had it taken care of, but it shows that sometimes you have to look beyond the actual paycheck.
That is another thing to watch out for.
I got an extra paycheck from an old job once. Icwas nice and told them though and had to send it back.
An extra paycheck would be nice. It was good of you to let them know.
Over the years, I routinely would find mistakes (always in my favor). As a former CFO, it was part of my job to check the payroll system.
I’ve never had a mistake in my favor, but maybe I’m just more aware of mistakes that aren’t in my favor.
Mrs.CBB once said she had it happen in her favour two pays in a row lol. Instead of paying her $6.40 an hour they paid her $64.40 an hour. Keep in mind she was very young so when she saw her pay she thought she won the work lottery. She gave it all back BUT then it happened again the next pay. lol.. they got that back too. We track all of our ours on an Overtime Tracking Sheet I made in excel which is on the blog. I put it on the refrigerator and when I get home I write in my hours. I check it against my pay when I get it. Mr.CBB
The $64.40 wage would have really boosted the paycheck. The tracking sheet sounds like a good idea.
We always check my paycheque because I’m paid hourly, and get overtime after 40 hours. There are probably discrepancies once a month, they are always in the companies favour, but they fix them by the next pay period.
Since you are paid hourly and get overtime there are more chances for the company to make a mistake. It is good that you are able to find them and the company fixes them. I wonder how much employees that don’t check end up losing in a year.
I had a co-worker that got significantly overpaid. He kept calling HR, but they said they didn’t make a mistake. Sure enough a few months later they realized their mistake and started garnishing my co-workers pay to get their cash back.
That would have annoyed me. I hope your co-worker didn’t spend all the cash so that the garnishing didn’t affect her too harshly.
It can definitely happen. I had a coworker who moved from New York to California, but the company never removed the New York withholding from her check, but did add California. Man, she was hurting for about a month before it was resolved.
Having two state taxes taken out would hurt. It probably seemed like a pay raise when she got the problem fixed.