There are many reasons you don’t want your employer to pay you in cash. First, it can have serious repercussions if the IRS comes to find out that you’re not paying tax on your earnings. Second, it can have an impact on a variety of legal issues – including your ability to collect certain damages in the event you have a personal injury case.
Read on to learn more about how it can affect your case. If you believe that you have a personal injury case against a person or entity, contact Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas at 909-982-0707 right away. We are here to help you find the best way to move forward. Call for a free case evaluation and find out what your options are.
Personal injury cases require you to prove your income
Depending on the specific type of personal injury case in question, you may be eligible to sue for loss of earnings or loss of earning capacity. In order to collect damages for lost earnings, you’d typically need to provide a history of your earnings.
If you want to collect for loss of earning capacity, then you’d likely need to also give information about your education and training, all of which would give the jury the information they need to understand your future earning potential and how it may have been affected by your accident.
The complications of being paid under the table
Most people who are paid under the table don’t take it upon themselves to pay taxes on their earnings. If they do, they likely don’t include all of their earnings in their tax documents. This can be a huge blow to certain personal injury cases in a number of ways.
In some cases, a judge may exclude the entire loss of earnings claim. They may say that there’s no legal documentation to the loss. It’s unlikely that your employer is going to want to come forward and provide records of your payment, because it can bring up issues of liability for them, including claims of illegal activity. This can come with penalties, fines, interest, etc.
Judges also don’t typically look highly on people who want to not pay taxes but then claim damages for lost wages in lawsuits. If the judge does permit the lost wages claim to continue, then the person who’s been injured in the accident is likely to be attacked by the defense attorney. They’re likely to point out that the person in question has been withholding information from the government and that they have been putting their tax burden on the rest of us.
There may be ways to avoid these complications
You can see that it can be tricky to get lost wages damages for an employee who’s paid under the table. That said, it’s not impossible. If you’ve been injured in an accident, whether a car accident, motorcycle accident, or any other type of accident, contact Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas at 909-982-0707 right away. We can provide a free legal consultation to let you know what your options are moving forward.
