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samwang168 · Mar 24, 2009, 01:58 PM

What is the penalty for a CEO to creat a "ghost employee", which means a person's name is on the payroll but he/she never shows up at the office to do any work? This case happens in California. The "ghost employee" got about $6,000.

JudyKayTee · Mar 24, 2009, 04:10 PM

Why?

excon · Mar 24, 2009, 04:18 PM

Hello sam:

It might be, but we need to know WHY he did it, WHO got the $6,000, and did he pay taxes on it.

excon

stevetcg · Mar 24, 2009, 04:39 PM

Unless some sort of fraud was committed, probably not. However I cannot imagine a reason to create a non-entity that doesn't involve some sort of fraud.

The fraud would be what is illegal, not the employee per se.

Fr_Chuck · Mar 24, 2009, 04:41 PM

Who owns the company, it is private owned company. Whose social seucrity number are they paying them under, whose ID did they use to verify their status to work.

twinkiedooter · Mar 24, 2009, 04:43 PM

If the ghost employee had the company take out the appropriate taxes and the ghost employee was issued the appropriate W-2 or 1099 what could possibly be illegal about that? It does not matter if the person shows up for work or not. That is for the employer to decide if the person gets paid or not. A lot of companies have what you call ghost employees working for them. You don't have to show up to work everyday in order to get paid a salary by a company.

ScottGem · Mar 24, 2009, 04:52 PM

Lets put it this way. The only reason I can see to do this is to commit a fraud. I can see no legitimate reason. It was probably done to shelter income or steal from the company.

AK lawyer · Apr 1, 2009, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by twinkiedooter

If the ghost employee had the company take out the appropriate taxes and the ghost employee was issued the appropriate W-2 or 1099 what could possibly be illegal about that? It does not matter if the person shows up for work or not. That is for the employer to decide if the person gets paid or not. A lot of companies have what you call ghost employees working for them. You don't have to show up to work everyday in order to get paid a salary by a company.

Where can I get a job like that? Oh. Wait! Don't tell me.. . Run for Congress?

Seriously, the question describes an actual person, not what I would imagine (a fictional identity). If that is the case, a shareholder in the company might make a case that the company is being defrauded if the shareholder can establish that

the service the employee is supposedly providing is not being done at all;
the CEO was aware that no service is being provided; and that
this is a scheme on the part of the CEO and the employee