PAYROLL TAXES DEDUCTED BUT MULTIPLE STATES NEVER REGISTERED FILED OR PAID!! OWNER UNRESPONSIVE!
I am a small business owner who doesn’t have the bandwidth the experience or expertise to deal with part of the business, which is why I engaged Scott for his professional service. This has cost me over 100 hours of admin time plus hundreds of dollars of late fees for each state (SO FAR). It’s still unresolved..
In 2019, I was referred to Scott Doody at Quartermaster Payroll when I was hiring my first two CA employees. As I grew my team, I asked Scott if they could support payroll for out of state employees. He assured me he could do the registration and appropriate filings and said there would be admin fees to get them set up. I agreed to let him do it. I ended up hiring a total of 4 out of state employees in OR, TX, NV and PA.
Fast forward to Dec 2022. We were growing and I made the business decision to switch to a PEO so that we could bundle payroll/benefits/HR services, etc. That’s when I learned that Quartermaster NEVER registered our company with any of the other states. They were *withholding* payroll taxes and UI deductions but not actually filing and paying them to the states!
I spoke with Scott on Dec 12th 2022 and he assured me that the taxes and UI monies were sitting in escrow and impound accounts until the registrations were completed. He also told me that he’d get started on getting us properly registered. He got OR set up then I started getting LATE NOTICE penalties and interest for late filings. I set up WA and began getting late notices there too.
Every time I receive a notice, I send to Scott and request an update on the status of the filings for all of the states because I want to get caught up. I’ve called, he never answers the phone or returns my phone calls. I’ve emailed and he almost NEVER responds.
As of today, 4/27/23, I have no idea the status of NV, PA, or TX. I do know that WA is waiting to be filed but I had to pay another penalty there today.
**WHERE IS THE MONEY SCOTT?
Other Errors:
• Sometime in 2022, my TX employee notified me that she was seeing CA tax payroll deductions. It turned out, the same was happening for two other out of state employees. Quartermaster had to redo the numbers which resulted in credits back to each employee. But it also meant our Quarterly Reports were incorrect and I never got corrected Quarterlies.
• Getting the payroll preview and noticing vacation & sick time accruals being incorrect. In some cases, giving away too much time, in others, not giving enough.
• Multiple times failing to remove a previous payroll cycle's expense reimbursement, which had I not caught it during the preview/approval, the employee would have been reimbursed twice.
• Applying the incorrect tax codes, resulting in an employees’ owing more in taxes.
Working with Quartermaster has really created so much havoc and chaos related to payroll. To say we are disappointed is an understatement.