Employer laid me off nearly one year ago. After the lay-off, I moved abroad to look for other work. Employers I applied to would contact RCP to inquire about my employment status with them, which is likely how RCP found out I moved away.
Fast forward to January. I did not receive my W2 from RCP. I began calling. And emailing.in March I finally decided to email the President of RCP, directly. My email simply stated that I did not receive my W2 and that I needed RCP to send it to me ASAP.
He responded with an angry tone, saying that he "figured we'd never hear from you again after you moved away." Oh, I guess that means I won't have to file a W2 for the half-year I worked while still in the States? He refused to fulfill my request.
I responded with a simple reminder that withholding employees' tax information is a Federal offense.
He responded to that email as well, going off on a tirade about how I'm not as clever as I think I am with my "threats" (I did not threaten him), how I'm a liar ("We sent your W2 again last week"—a blatant lie, as it would have arrived at my old address, where I still receive mail), a thief (?), a terrible person, etc. He told me that while I worked at RCP (nearly two years) he continually monitored my computer access. He stated in the email that he knows a lot more about me than I think he does — a statement that is threatening and actually makes me wish I could get a restraining order against this guy. I admit that I used my company laptop for some personal business — checking bank accounts, school email, etc., the things MOST office workers do on their lunch breaks — but nothing out of the ordinary or criminal, as he accused me of. He accused me of credit card fraud, totally out of left field (news to me since all corporate card purchases were approved on a biweekly basis), insurance fraud (I was rear-ended at a stoplight, a story corroborated by four other witnesses, and I barely got any money for it), etc.
The most disgusting thing of all, though, is this. Had he been monitoring all of my computer usage, he would have caught the excessive, unwelcome sexual advances a fellow employee bombarded me with via instant messaging. While I was an employee at RCP, I was too afraid to tell anybody, as RCP does not have an HR rep, and the supervisors I had simply did not care about anything, even my abusive boss who regularly called me an idiot, even in front of clients. So the president of RCP thinks it's okay to withhold my W2 because I moved abroad, but the guy who sexually harassed me via IM (even after repeated requests for him to stop) — he still has his job at RCP. It's a man's, man's, man's world.
Now I will have to file my taxes for 2009 without a W2, but I'm including all of these rude, out-of-line emails from the PRESIDENT of the company — so that hopefully the IRS will see RCP's gross unwillingness to comply with basic unemployment/tax law — so that hopefully RCP will get audited.
In my opinion, and in the law's opinion, there is simply no excuse to withhold a W2. Even if the president's accusations were true, he is not entitled to withhold my W2 from me as "punishment." And if his accusations were true, why would he wait ten months to contact me about the situation? No attempt was made by him or anyone at RCP, to call me, email me, or send me a letter.
It is my firm belief that RCP did not file withholding information for me, and so the president is trying to bully me out of demanding this information from him. I suppose heis trying to intimidate me so that I'll stop asking, in the hopes that, without a W2, I won't be able to report any earnings or withholdings from RCP. Well, when I file a Form 4852, and the IRS sees his email blatantly defying the law, I will be the one who wins this battle.
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