Payroll Advances

[tonia2021]

What is a legal payroll advance? I have an employer that has many employees that never have any money. To be nice, the employer allowed them to charge food on the company credit card. Every time they charged, the foreman told the employees that the money would come out of their paycheck. When the employees got back on the bus, the foreman would ask each what they had and then put each employees initials by the charges. Each employee knew full well that this would be taken out of their check. Is this legal? Now one of the employees is asking for the "unauthorized" advances back, saying it was illegal for the company to do this.
Any response would be appreciated. Plus, any advice where I can find information about this on the internet would be helpful.

[S T]

Labor Law

Check your State Labor Laws, they usually will have a list of what is an allowable deduction.

Sandy

[JohnH]

I'd do an internet search using the words "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" for starters.

[Burke]

What is a legal payroll advance? I have an employer that has many employees that never have any money. To be nice, the employer allowed them to charge food on the company credit card. Every time they charged, the foreman told the employees that the money would come out of their paycheck. When the employees got back on the bus, the foreman would ask each what they had and then put each employees initials by the charges. Each employee knew full well that this would be taken out of their check. Is this legal? Now one of the employees is asking for the "unauthorized" advances back, saying it was illegal for the company to do this.
Any response would be appreciated. Plus, any advice where I can find information about this on the internet would be helpful.

A national company that I know had an established plan to advance money to employees for certain things, like licensing expenses, industry educational expenses, vacation pay, etc. Each employee had to request the funds by signing a form authorizing deductions from his/her paycheck each pay period to repay in a specified time frame. In the case of advanced vacation pay, it was deducted in full on the next check, or same thing on anything if they resigned. Sometimes the company got stuck if they left abruptly and there were no funds due the employee from which to recover. I would think the company should have had them sign such an agreement or never given them the credit card info. Public and private employees often charge expenses on a company credit card, but I bet they sign something too. I am not saying the practice you described above is illegal. That is a matter for a lawyer.