Hey guys, need some advice on how to deal with a past employer reaching out to us about paying back education funding.
Almost a year ago, my wife left a company that paid for her masters degree for a better, much higher paying job. Part of the agreement when receiving funding was that you had to pay back all classes taken in the last two years.
Six months ago, we received a “bill” in the mail for $23k from the old employer, which was a shock since we only owed $17k, a number we calculated by adding up the classes we were liable for according to the rules. She called the number on the letter and asked for a breakdown of expenses, and they refused to provide anything. Recently she revived another letter stating she owes $20k, still over the amount we calculated, but almost concerning they changes it randomly.
Other information that I feel is important: Half way through the program, the company decided to change the education funding policy and tax the employees on education funding over $5500 each year. The $17k number we calculated did not take this into account. There was about $1.5k in taxes we paid over the course of the program.
My questions are: 1) What are the actions the company will likely take if we don’t pay? 2) Is it concerning they will not provide a breakdown? I feel like people must have asked before us! Especially since the first letter stated $6k over what we owed. 3) The taxes were already paid, so if we have to pay back the education funding, then do we get these taxes back? It would be as if we paid for the degree on our own, and would this be deductible as an education expense on our personal taxes?
Any additional advice is appreciated as well.
Submitted February 21, 2019 at 08:24AM by melsurf https://ift.tt/2GUvqoI
