L&I: Blame the Victim?
This is an unfortunate story out of Wenatchee:
The state Department of Labor & Industries has forced local business owner Jack Colson to pay more than $700 in worker's compensation taxes for a worker he never employed.
L&I officials know they're taxing Colson for workers who didn't exist. But they still insist on collecting.There's nothing else they can do, an L&I spokesman says. Deadlines were exceeded, procedures violated.
The Colsons closed their business and laid off their employees. But L&I says it never closed its tax account in writing. Rather:
Sherri Colson, the company's bookkeeper, said both she and her husband had spoken with L&I throughout their downsizing process. They asked for a final audit to ensure all was in order before closing their L&I account. With downsizing complete and the audit in progress, Sherri Colson said she told L&I's East Wenatchee field agent Aurora Flores in June 2007 that she wanted to close The Woodcrafter's account. The store was closed, she told Flores, and all the workers laid off. Colson said she hung up the phone thinking that everything was in order and that the account would be closed. But it wasn't. L&I won't close an account unless the business requests the closure in writing. Colson's request was verbal. Nobody told Colson that.
The small business owners then apparently had the gall to go on Christmas vacation while L&I served them their quarterly tax notice, which wasn't appealed in time.
L&I's defense for pursuing a tax it knows it isn't owed?
Ron Langley, small business liaison for L&I, says the Colsons brought the problem on themselves by not following correct industry procedure and failing to meet deadlines.
There are competing arguments here. But the Department's response seems especially tone deaf.
The newspaper article doesn't provide enough info to fully diagnose the dispute, but I do note that RCW 51.16.155, the statute governing the collection of workers' comp taxes when the employer fails or refuses to pay them contains this provision:
The director or the director's designee may compromise the amount of premiums estimated by the department, whether reduced to judgment or otherwise, arising under this title if collection of the premiums estimated by the department would be against equity and good conscience.
What a better approach to resolving a small dispute than what essentially comes off as blaming the victim.