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.
&gt;Because business is GREAT, right? The consumer and retail sectors ARENT suffering in the toilet? The whole economy is flourishing!  Hate to break it to you but it's the republican policies of deregulation and tax cuts we can't afford that got us this shit sandwich.    &gt;Considering most wage earners live paycheck to paycheck and have very little in the way of savings it doesn't suprise me they don't appreciate companies who MUST do this to survive or risk running out of capital and going bankrupt.  Really?  Seems to me like a person living paycheck to paycheck would actually have a very good idea of what it's like to live on the edge of bankruptcy Yes, you can blame the consumer, and that's fair. But the question is, are our labelling laws pretty good? And the answer is no, especially when conpared to comparably affluent countries. Not. At. All.   What I described is an intentionally created loophole used to mislead the consumer. It's ridiculous. "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.)" &gt;Term limits would help, or at least change the current dynamic, as would barring former representatives and senators from lobbying for five years. Finally, making Congress subject to the laws it passes would also help. But the parties will never agree to modify the current system; both parties benefit too much from it.  Not going to happen! Lets get over it folks, the only thing that is going to fix this country is to throw the current ((government)) out and install a fresh set of faces and no ((traitors))!! It will usually take a week or two for changes to your withholding to take effect in payroll.  However 0 deductions will withhold more per check than 3.  So if at 0 deductions you are having to pay in April then I would suggest not changing your W2 to 3 deductions.  Instead in the section for extra with holding add $25 per week.  This should leave you with a more manageable return in April. "Now today I received another refund in the same amount for the same property. What can legally happen if I cash it? Legally the money is not yours. The best course for you is to return the check via certified mail, notifying them that you were already paid. Just because someone made an error, does not mean the money belongs to you. If you don't and rather cash the check; sooner or later depending on the amount, it would be found out by the company as part of reconciliation/audit; they will/can then demand the same back from you.  It is up to the company to decide if simply refund is sufficient; or refund plus some interest or start a legal proceeding against you as ""intentional theft""." Nope. Everyone has a price.      You'd probably spend 1-2 years in prison for the right amount of money and a guaranteed multi-year high-paying position waiting for you after you got out. The company's legal team could work to scrub your record.    Politicians practically do the same thing... enter office, take a $175K annual salary for a few years, act as a vote proxy for a major corp, and exit office to a cushy high-paid corporate job. I use paycheckcity.com and first punch in my paycheck and make sure it calculates within a few pennies the value of my actual paycheck. Then I fiddle with withholding values, etc. to see the effect of change.  It has been very effective for me over the years.