What a mess!

My goodness, what a little mess a bonus check has turned out to be!  Ok - my side job and my regular job both use the same payroll company (a pretty small company) to process payroll. I am on the payroll, as a w-2 employee for my regular job. I am not on the payroll for my side job. I am paid with a company check, supplied with a 1099 at year end and pay my own taxes on it.

So, the side job owner's wife and her hubby had a miscommunication. He told her he was giving me a bonus and wanted it grossed up to cover taxes. She knew I'm not on payroll (he does too, for that matter) and had a company check cut to me, which I cashed. Well, the owner contacted the payroll company, explained he wanted to give me a bonus and wasn't sure how to go about it, since I'm not on their payroll (wife didn't know he did this). Well....they decided "oh, we'll just add it to her regular job's income (and w-2) but invoice the side job company for the bill to cover the payroll check........

I get the check and of course don't cash it, since I already got a bonus in the form of a company check. I have spent since the day after Christmas trying to get a stupid answer on this! I said that if possible, I would just like to return this check to the payroll company,  they can void it out and reverse the income recorded to me.....if NOT, then ok, I'll just deposit it and mail a personal check to my side job, to pay them back for the 2nd bonus. Just let me know which way we are doing this.

I cannot get an answer one way or the other! Finally, last week I mentioned it to my boss at my regular job. I wanted her to know that the payroll company added income to me under their  account (and my w-2 with them) in case there ever was an audit or something and records didn't match as to what my regular job has on their books as paying me in total wages, compared to what the payroll company shows as them paying me in total wages for the year.  She said she actually knew about it, they had asked her if it was ok to do it that way.

Now, she just got an email from the payroll company - with an invoice attached to it, because they say they now voided the bonus check.  What??!! First off, no one told me it got voided and second off - why in the world would my regular job company have to pay anything on it at all?! The payroll company cut the check the week before Christmas, withdrew the money for the check out of my side jobs bank account (like they do with any payroll the process for them). If they voided the check that I have sitting her on my desk, then the payroll company needs to reimburse my side job for it! My regular company sure doesn't owe anything for it.  Someone is totally messed up.

Good grief - I should have just cashed the dang thing, wrote out a personal check that day and mailed it off to my boss's wife, so she could deposit it and the company get refunded for one of the bonus's paid to me. Simple as that. I just wanted to try and get that 2nd bonus off of my regular job's w-2 for the year and not get the 2 incomes co-mingled. I really don't know why they are making this so difficult to resolve.