“Per Diem” Payments Latest Employer Fraud Issue in Workers’ Compensation

On Behalf of | Jul 16, 2015 | Firm News

I have written often about the public’s perception that workers file fraudulent claims in workers’ compensation. The public perception (which ranges from one in ten to approximately one in three) is completely erroneous. The actual statistics indicate the incidence of employee fraud is as little as one-sixth of one percent, or two workers in ten thousand claims (based on the latest statistics available from the Wisconsin Worker’s Compensation Division).

Employer fraud, on the other hand, is rampant and grows daily into the billions of dollars. A recent report by the U.S. Department of Wage and Hour Division out of New Orleans indicated six Gulf Coast staffing agencies agreed to pay thousands of workers nearly $3.5 million in back wages after investigators found part of the workers’ wages were mislabeled as “per diem” payments as reimbursement for expenses they never incurred. The Labor Department indicated the recent investigations were part of an ongoing initiative aimed at ending an illegal and alarming trend of employers labeling part of employee wages as Per Diem payments, often to avoid overtime, payroll taxes, and other costs (such as workers’ compensation insurance premiums). The Department of Labor noted that companies break the law when they call part of a worker’s regular wages “per diem” expense reimbursement instead of wages. They do this in order to lower labor costs, avoid paying overtime, and avoid making payments toward federal and state taxes, workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, and Social Security payments. These kinds of employers gain an unfair advantage over their competitors, some of whom are paying these taxes appropriately.

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