What happens if I intentionally throw out a paycheck?
"How/when does my employer find out? Do they get a report from their   bank stating that ""check 1234 for $1212.12 paid to John Doe was never   deposited"" or does it manifest itself as an eventual accounting   discrepancy that somebody has to work to hunt down? The accounting department or the payroll company they use will report that the check was not deposited. The bank has no idea that a check was written, but the accounting deportment will know.  The bank reports on all the checks that were cashed. Accounting cares because the un-cashed check for $1212.12 is a liability. They have to keep enough money in the bank to pay all the liabilities. It shouldn't be hard for them to track down the discrepancy, they will know what checks are outstanding. Can my employer punish me for refusing the money in this way? Do they   have any means to force me to take what I am ""owed?"" They can't punish you. But at some time in the future they will will tell their bank not to honor the check. They will assume that it was lost or misplaced, and they will issue a new one to you.  When tax time comes, and I still have not accepted the money, would it   be appropriate to adjust my reported income down by the refused   amount? You can't decide not to report it. The company knows that in year X they gave you a check for the money. They are required to report it, since they also withheld money for Federal taxes, state taxes, payroll taxes, 401K, insurance. They also count your pay as a business expense.  If you try and adjust the numbers on the W-2  the IRS will note the discrepancy and want more information. Remember the IRS get a copy of every W-2.  The employer has to report it because some people who aren't organized may not have cashed a December check before the company has to generate the W-2 in late January. It would confuse everything if they could skip reporting income just because a check wasn't cashed by the time they had to generate the W-2." In a nutshell, throwing your taxable income in the trash does not remove it from your taxable income; you still have to report in your tax filing, and pay taxes as needed. Especially as you could at any time request your employer to write you a replacement check. I would expect them to start charging a fee for reprinting if you really annoy them by doing it dozens of times. If you want to avoid taxes on it, donate it to a deductible 501(c)3 organization; then it becomes neutral to your taxes.
IANAL but I'd think common sense would say that if you take advantage of one of the special cases that allow you to withdraw from a retirement plan without penalty, and then for whatever reason you don't use the money for a legal purpose, you would have to either return the money or pay the tax penalty. And I'll go out on a limb here without any documentation and guess that if you lie to the IRS and say that you withdrew the money for an exempt purpose and instead use it to go on vacation and you get caught, that you will not only have to pay the tax penalty but will also be liable for criminal charges of tax fraud. If the law and/or IRS regulations say that the only legal exceptions are A, B, and C, that pretty clearly means that if you do D, you are breaking the law. And in the eyes of the government, failing to pay the taxes you owe is way worse than robbery, murder, or rape. I'd think the first question here is: Did they overpay you? And if so, what were the circumstances? At one extreme: If you lied on your timesheet and said you worked 50 hours when really you only worked 40, and they paid you for 50 hours, and now they've figured out that you didn't really work those overtime hours, then yes, they overpaid you and you owe them the money. Or if you reported your time accurately but they made an honest mistake, like you worked 30 hours but for whatever reason they paid you for 40, then they really did overpay you and you owe them the money. Or if a check was just mis-printed because their computer system screwed up or something, sorry, you don't get to keep the money. Yes, we all have fantasies about the bank accidentally adding a million dollars to our balance and somehow we get to keep the money, but sorry, it doesn't work that way in real life. If there's been a mistake, once they figure out the mistake, you have to give the money back. If it's something more complicated, it might be debatable.  If you're not sure what the details are, find out the details and investigate. Do you have any evidence that what they are saying is not true? How much money is involved? If we're talking $20, it's not worth going to court over. You'd have to pay a lawyer way more than the $20. A court MIGHT order the company to pay your court costs if you won, but they might not. And if you lost, you could have to pay their court costs, which could be way more than any possible gain. There are times when it's better to just eat the loss and get on with your life. Of course, the same could be said from the other side: If the amount of money is small and the case is debatable and you refuse to hand over the cash, they may just give up figuring it's not worth the trouble. I don't know that I'd want to gamble on that, though. If there is serious money involved, at least several thousand dollars, then it could make sense to talk to a lawyer if you think you have a case. You'd probably have to sue them to get the money. In most cases those statements have disclaimers all over them telling you about the vesting period and technically that extra money was probably never really in your account.  Normally the statements also break out the actual contributions from the employer match part and have a footnote about the vesting policy. Unless the employer was completely incompetent in their management of this account, I am betting they will have documentation of the policy that you supposedly were given.  You probably have very slim chances of prevailing on this unless they were very lax in their documentation. I'd say re-check the statements and your employee manually carefully for any mention of vesting. If you don't find it, ask the employer (nicely) where you were notified of this. If they still can't produce any documentation, then sue them. "I disagree with @Sam's answers:  yes you will get that money back when your tax return is processed.  This is not true. You will receive funds that are in excess of your liability (contrary to popular belief, the government does not take more than what you are liable for).   ""is it possible to return the check and modify how it's calculated if I talk to payroll?""  No. When you sign your documents at the beginning of the year, that will dictate the amount of liability they take from each of your paychecks.  ""Will this difference be given back in my next tax return"" Because your company is withdrawing 25% on your paycheck you may/or may not need to pay more depending on the rest of your salary.  The IRS has set the system up as brackets. You pay your taxes based on the amount earned (voluntarily or involuntarily). So if you have income of $9,275 you would pay $923 in taxes at a marginal rate of 10% (and average rate of 10%). If you made $10,000, you would pay $923+$109=$1,032 with your marginal rate as 15% (while your average rate is 10.31%).  All in all, this is dependent on your salary, filing, and other deductions to raise or lower your tax liability.  Note: The $109 came from this: [(10,000-9,275)*.15]" "Create an account called, say, ""Paycheck"".  When you get paid, create an entry with your gross income as a deposit.  For each deduction in your paycheck, create a minus (or expense) entry.  After doing that, what will be left in the Paycheck account will be your net income.  Simply transfer this amount to the real account your paycheck goes into (your checking account, probably). Almost all the time, the value of your Paycheck account will be 0.  It will be nonzero only for a moment every two weeks (or however often you get paid). I don't know if this is the standard way of doing it (in the professional accounting world).  It's a way I developed on my own and it works well, I think.  I think it's better than just adding a deposit entry in your checking account for your net income as it lets you keep track of all your deductions. (I use Quicken for the Mac.  Before they added a Paycheck feature, I used this method.  Then they removed the Paycheck feature from the latest version of Quicken for the Mac and I now use this method again.)" "I had experience working for a company that manufactures stuff and giving products to the employees. The condition was to stay employed for a year after the gift for the company to cover its cost (I think they imputed the tax), otherwise they'd add the cost to the last paycheck (which they did when I left). But they were straight-forward about it and I signed a paper acknowledging it. However, in your case you didn't get a product (that you could return when leaving if you didn't want to pay), but rather a service. The ""winning"" trip was definitely supposed to be reported as income to you last year. Is it okay for them to treat me differently than the others for tax purposes? Of course not. But it may be that some strings were attached to the winning of the incentive trip (for example, you're required to stay employed for X time for the company to cover the expense). See my example above. Maybe it was buried somewhere in small letters. Can they do this a year after the trip was won and redeemed? As I said - in this case this sounds shady. Since it is a service which you cannot return - you should have been taxed on it when receiving it. Would the IRS want to know about this fuzzy business trip practice? How would I report it?  Here's how you can let them know. Besides now understanding the new level of slime from my former   employer is there anything else I should be worried about? Could they   do something like this every year just to be annoying? No, once they issued the last paycheck - you're done with them. They cannot issue you more paychecks after you're no longer an employee. In most US States, you are supposed to receive the last paycheck on your last day of work, or in very close proximity (matter of weeks at most)." "&gt; The worst that could happen to the employee is they could lose their job.  Yes, that's my point. An employee is not going to risk saying ""no"" to a violation of labor laws when their livelihood depends on keeping the pay check coming." They can go to an ATM and deposit it in to their account. The ATM does not care to read the name, and the bank does not care to verify anything if the check goes through (meaning the bank it is drawn on pays). So if nobody complains, that's it, he has your money. You would need to go to the check-writer's bank and ask for help, or look at the check-writer's cancelled check copy if you get to it. That bank can find out where it was deposited to, and then you have to go after the guy and get your money back - if it is still recoverable! - if it is a poor sod and he already blew your 5 grand, you can sue his pants off, but there are no 5 grand in them anywhere. So bad luck for you. Technically, the bank is not supposed to accept the check if the name doesn't match. At the counter, that might get a question, but as said above, there are deposit ATMs, and he could also just endorse the check to himself and sign the endorsement with some illegible scrawling, and claim that this is your signature - how would Joe the teller know? Either way, he gets the check in his account, and then he can take it out and blow it. It is legally clearly theft or fraud, and probably a federal crime, but if the guy is bankrupt, that doesn't help you much. Depending on that bank's fine-print, they might or might not cover your loss, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Better don't lose a check. If you leave your job (or lose it) the loan is due on separation. You'll pay tax and a10% penalty. "The answer probably varies with local law, and you haven't said where you're located. In most or all US states, it appears that after some statutory length of time, the bank would transfer the money to the state government, where it would be held indefinitely as ""unclaimed property"" in the name of the recipient (technically, the payee, the person to whom the check is made payable).  This process is called escheatment.  Most states publish a list of all unclaimed property, so at some later date the payee could find their name on this list, and realize they were entitled to the funds.  There would then be a process by which the payee could claim the funds from the state.   Usually the state keeps any interest earned on the money. As far as I know, there typically wouldn't be any way for you, the person who originated the payment, to collect the money after escheatment.  (Before escheatment, if you have the uncashed check in your possession, you can usually return it to the bank and have it refunded to you.) I had trouble finding an authoritative source explaining this, but a number of informal sources (found by Googling ""cashier check escheatment"") seem to agree that this is generally how it works.  Here is the web site for a law firm, saying that in California an uncashed cashier's check escheats to the state after 3 years. Until escheatment occurs, the recipient can cash the check at any time.  I don't think that cashier's checks become ""stale"" like personal checks do, and there isn't any situation in which the funds would automatically revert to you." I still have my bank account active in usa. Can my company legally   deposit my salary in my bank account? Of course they can. Where they deposit is of no consequence (in the US, may be in India). It is who they deposit it for that matters. You need to file form W8 with the company, and they may end up withholding portion of that pay for IRS. You'll need to talk to a tax adviser in India about how to report the income back at home, and you may need to talk to a tax adviser in the US about what to do if the company does indeed remit withholding from your earnings. The insurance company issued the check.  I'd contact the insurance company to have the current check voided and a new one issued to the pharmacy. It is possible that they only do the hold on the first deposit from a given source. It is probably worth asking if they intend to do the hold on every paycheck or just the first one. In the UK the official rule is that a cheque is valid for 3 years from the date it was wrote. However after 3 months some banks can choose to turn them down. I had a cheque once that was a year old which is when I looked it up to see whether it was stil valid, and I found the laws regarding it then.  I was actually quite surprised it was 3 years! Btw if it does bounce your quite entitled to ask your employer for a replacement cheque.  They owe it you and it's just sat in their account assigned to you anyway. Take a certain percentage of your income (say, 10%, but more is better if you can) and put it aside with every paycheck. Some employers will even allow you to direct deposit your paycheck into two different accounts and you can specify a certain amount or percentage for the second account. Your savings will go directly into a separate account as if you never had it in the first place. Consider your savings untouchable as spending money. Watch it grow. There's no other secret, you just have to do it!