{"id":1613,"date":"2008-06-24T21:11:36","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T03:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=1613"},"modified":"2012-01-02T10:03:46","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T16:03:46","slug":"ups-rats-out-fedex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/ups-rats-out-fedex\/","title":{"rendered":"UPS Rats Out FedEx"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=aFJ3yzlYJpXw&amp;refer=home\">story from Bloomberg<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A secret report from a lobbyist who represents United Parcel Service Inc. prompted an Ohio state investigation into employment practices of FedEx Corp., leading to a finding that FedEx owed back taxes and interest.<\/p>\n<p>Kenneth Kies, a Washington tax lawyer and lobbyist whose firm has been paid $540,000 by UPS since 2002, sent Ohio officials a 562-page report in December 2006 alleging that FedEx misclassified truck drivers as contractors. A copy of the report, including a cover letter in which Kies asked for confidentiality, was released to Bloomberg News by Ohio officials.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We took it and opened our own investigation,&#8221; said Judi Cicatiello, Ohio&#8217;s unemployment compensation deputy director. She said it was &#8220;very&#8221; unusual to get such detailed allegations. Her agency determined in May 2007 that the drivers were employees and FedEx owed $654,000 in taxes and interest. The company is appealing.<\/p>\n<p>The report is the first disclosure indicating that UPS may have played a role in prompting an investigation of FedEx&#8217;s employment of 15,000 drivers as independent contractors. The strategy gives FedEx a cost advantage over UPS, whose 91,800 drivers are covered by a contract with the Teamsters Union.<\/p>\n<p>[snip]<\/p>\n<p>FedEx&#8217;s labor practices have been under investigation in 25 states and prompted a lawsuit as a class action covering drivers in 20 states. FedEx said in December that it may have to pay $319 million in back taxes and penalties to the Internal Revenue Service for worker misclassification in 2002.<\/p>\n<p>The IRS also was auditing FedEx&#8217;s trucking unit for 2004 to 2006, the company said. The potential liability may rise to $1 billion if the U.S. review results in an adverse ruling, said Jon Langenfeld, an analyst at Robert W. Baird &amp; Co. in Milwaukee, in an interview last week.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interesting story from Bloomberg: A secret report from a lobbyist who represents United Parcel Service Inc. prompted an Ohio state investigation into employment practices of FedEx Corp., leading to a finding that FedEx owed back taxes and interest. Kenneth Kies, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-auditing-regulations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-q1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}