Flex Spending Childcare Fund?

[Anonymous]

OP HERE: I contacted the mom and asked if 1. She'd like me to come over to sign the form or 2. Email it to me and I'd fill my portion out... she has an iPhone, she read the message at 7:01am and it is 3:17p,.. Still no response. yes, texting is unprofessional, but I was simply responding to her message.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP HERE: I contacted the mom and asked if 1. She'd like me to come over to sign the form or 2. Email it to me and I'd fill my portion out... she has an iPhone, she read the message at 7:01am and it is 3:17p,.. Still no response. yes, texting is unprofessional, but I was simply responding to her message.

You've gone above and beyond what you were obligated to do (which IMHO is nothing). Let it go now, she had her chance.

[Anonymous]

Funny how I knew this MB was a flake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP HERE: I contacted the mom and asked if 1. She'd like me to come over to sign the form or 2. Email it to me and I'd fill my portion out... she has an iPhone, she read the message at 7:01am and it is 3:17p,.. Still no response. yes, texting is unprofessional, but I was simply responding to her message.

OP, they sound just flaky in general.

As a nanny myself, I think it was their obligation to let you know prior to hire that they would need your #SSN since they would be paying you out of a Flex Spending Account. It's kinda water under the bridge for them to contact you well into the Fall and mention they need your #SSN now, five weeks later.

They must have some money left over and are trying to weasel it from what they paid you which they didn't think they would have to do during the summer, etc.

Sounds like bad planning to me.

Just ignore them.

They obviously know nothing about financial planning and are just clueless about money.

[Anonymous]

17:31 I know :-/ I just feel as though she didn't have good intentions, why else read the message and not respond ? ? I dont't know, but I wil not be giving her my SSN, i do know that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP HERE: I contacted the mom and asked if 1. She'd like me to come over to sign the form or 2. Email it to me and I'd fill my portion out... she has an iPhone, she read the message at 7:01am and it is 3:17p,.. Still no response. yes, texting is unprofessional, but I was simply responding to her message.

OP, they sound just flaky in general.

As a nanny myself, I think it was their obligation to let you know prior to hire that they would need your #SSN since they would be paying you out of a Flex Spending Account. It's kinda water under the bridge for them to contact you well into the Fall and mention they need your #SSN now, five weeks later.

They must have some money left over and are trying to weasel it from what they paid you which they didn't think they would have to do during the summer, etc.

Sounds like bad planning to me.

Just ignore them.

They obviously know nothing about financial planning and are just clueless about money.

This is ridiculous. The boss might not have realized she'd need to get the SSN from the OP when she started the job. Perhaps she thought she'd have enough receipts from the other care she's been getting throughout the year. Perhaps she decided not to have her child/children cared for for the rest of the year and now would like to apply the summer care for the credit. All of the posters such as this PP who think this is some big conspiracy really don't understand what exactly the boss is doing, do you? It's a completely legitimate request.

Now I agree that the OP has the right to safeguard her SSN, and I think it's totally fair for her to request that they meet up or that the form gets mailed directly to her. But to call the MB a flake and say she should have known better or is trying to 'weasel' anything is just silly without knowing more about the situation.

[Anonymous]

14:09 sounds naive. This sort of behavior is so old for many of us. But since you're not a nanny, how would you know?

[Anonymous]

I say contacting someone five weeks after they stopped working for you and asking them for their SSN because you need it for your Flex Spending acct. that is going to dry up soon, etc. is totally irresponsible OP.

The job has been over for over a month, and now they want your SSN? They should have mentioned all of this prior to you working for them.

I wouldn't be too thrilled if a family contacted me after a job ended and asked me for my Tax ID # because they needed to give it to their employer. WTF?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:09 sounds naive. This sort of behavior is so old for many of us. But since you're not a nanny, how would you know?

So tell me, what exactly do you think the boss is going to do with the nanny's SSN? Please, do tell.

[Anonymous]

OP HERE: I am not saying she wanted to do anything with my information by any means, but when I responded to her.. She opened the message from her iPhone and at this point, it has been roughly 17 hours.. So it is kind of strange, that's all I am saying. Maybe she finds it insulting that I wanted to meet up, but at the same time, she never mentioned this program when i asked about taxes etc during the interview. I babysat for a mom who is a fed employee who explained it all to me and even after I explained it, she said it was a good thing I was hesitant about giving it to the other mom 5 weeks AFTER my employment has ended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Flex Spending Acct. is tax~free money saved in an acct. for childcare that must be used up by a certain time or the money is forfeited. Your bosses saved it in a separate work acct. and don't have to pay taxes on it, but they do have to utilize it by a certain date or they lose every penny of it.

I don't see why they didn't mention this to you at the onset of your employment. I am sure they knew this money existed. Since they paid you in cash payment, there really is no paper trail as of now that you worked for them so I would just not send them my #SSN. Yes, it would be legal now and through the IRS since it would be going through this acct.

If I were in your shoes, as long as she didn't know where I lived, I would blow her off.

It is totally irresponsible of them to not inform you prior of this action.

My guess is they were using the money for other child~related things and realized they had some left over money and since it has to be spent soon, they thought, "Oh...Let's just contact our Summer sitter and get her to give us her TIN, Tax Iden. Number = #SSN so we can apply the money to that..." which I find kinda shady and irresponsible. It's like a last thought so they do not waste any of their monies.

This is pretty harsh. The rules around using the FSA childcare accounts aren't immediately obvious, and unless you have a skilled/knowledgeable HR team educate you on how to do it you often don't realize what you need to file for reimbursement until that time comes. (I'm an MB who had to go through the whole process to fully understand it.) Her employers may just be learning as they go, not shady or irresponsible. If OP wishes to harm her former employers then she can blow them off. If she had a decent relationship with them (and wants to preserve the reference, if nothing else) then she should try to find a way to help them.

We're all people - try cutting someone a break and assuming good intent instead of bad automatically.

Agreed - this is a reasonable request and I'm surprised at how harsh some of the responses here are. As an MB who uses an FSA childcare account, it's not immediately obvious what is required. The first time we submitted for reimbursement, it was sent back because we needed a "receipt" from our nanny for her paycheck. I can't think of why they would have told a nanny up front that they were using an FSA if they didn't know they'd need her to sign something and provide her SSN (which clearly they didn't realize, or they would have done it while she was still working with them). Also, it's THEIR money taken directly out of a paycheck. Which they will lose if they don't use it. So why on earth would they not want to use it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:14:09 sounds naive. This sort of behavior is so old for many of us. But since you're not a nanny, how would you know?

So tell me, what exactly do you think the boss is going to do with the nanny's SSN? Please, do tell.

I am actually curious as well. I do think people should generally be cautious about handing out SSNs, but in this case, this is an employer. If OP had worked enough hours to get past the tax threshold, would she have refused to provide her SSN and fill out the tax paperwork then because she didn't want her employer to have her SSN?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:14:09 sounds naive. This sort of behavior is so old for many of us. But since you're not a nanny, how would you know?

So tell me, what exactly do you think the boss is going to do with the nanny's SSN? Please, do tell.

I am actually curious as well. I do think people should generally be cautious about handing out SSNs, but in this case, this is an employer. If OP had worked enough hours to get past the tax threshold, would she have refused to provide her SSN and fill out the tax paperwork then because she didn't want her employer to have her SSN?

Obviously not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:14:09 sounds naive. This sort of behavior is so old for many of us. But since you're not a nanny, how would you know?

So tell me, what exactly do you think the boss is going to do with the nanny's SSN? Please, do tell.

I am actually curious as well. I do think people should generally be cautious about handing out SSNs, but in this case, this is an employer. If OP had worked enough hours to get past the tax threshold, would she have refused to provide her SSN and fill out the tax paperwork then because she didn't want her employer to have her SSN?

Obviously not.

I guess I'm not sure how this is different? It's still a legitimate reason to request an employee's SSN.

[Anonymous]

Your flex account is not the IRS. Nice try.