Today in 
Today in predicaments from across the pond, a concerned employee wonders if a couple of partners who have given their wife and girlfriend no-show jobs are up to some financial shenanigans. Of course this prospecting employee is thinking about approaching said partners about this. What could go wrong?
The partners of the LLP I work for have added their wife and girlfriend to the payroll of the company even though neither said wife or girlfriend actually work here. I believe the reason being is to reduce profit, partner remuneration etc to ultimately reduce the amount of tax paid by the partners at the end of each financial year.
The ‘salaries’ are fairly low (£16,500 [$27k USD] and £13,000 [$21.4k USD] per annum) and Tax and NI etc is processed as normal through PAYE. One of the ladies even has student loan deductions. Periodically each lady will have a large ‘bonus’ of around £15,000. I assume the payments go directly in the wife/girlfriend’s bank accounts.
I’m sure there must be some sort of law against this as it seems, to me, too obvious to be a loophole. Does anyone one know what these laws are and the repercussions should the partners get caught?
I work as an administrator for the company and rely solely on accounting and payroll software and therefore only have very limited knowledge on the subject. I am hoping to approach the partners on the matter so any help/information would be greatly appreciated 🙂
Maybe this “administrator” has too much time on their hands and is simply jumping to conclusions (which we applaud) but then again, a no-show job is a no-show job. They are violating NCAA rules or anything but for the puritanical types this could seem a little sketchy.
