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Is it possible the pay was retroactive to an earlier date and they are making up for it?
No because if it was retroactive it would have shown up as such and been a lump sum under that category on the pay stub.... OP are you calculating on the gross pay and are you doing it correctly?
Not to be an azz but a lot of times people calculate different than payroll does. Example, when I retired my annual pay was sorted to hourly by dividing the total gross by 2087 hours. We were paid bi weekly so employees used to just take the gross and divide by 26 weeks. They ALWAYS got a different answer than what was real....
As a new professional in the world of work, I was so happy to get notice that I was promoted and would get a ten percent raise along with lots of new responsibilities. Looks like for me at least the world of work is going to be great and my college training was helpful.
I was so excited to see my first pay stub after my first raise! Even more excited when I saw that they gave me a 17% raise instead of the 10% my promotional letter stated.
I assumed that they would find the mistake and cut my next check down accordingly but the second and third paycheck also gave me the 17% raise. (Instead of the 10% they promised.)
What would you do? Let it be and see what happens and if they find their error in an audit, play dumb, or would you report the overpayment to your supervisor?
I know it's hard to tell them that you are being paid too much. It is September once the W-2 comes out it really starts to get messy.
As a new professional in the world of work, I was so happy to get notice that I was promoted and would get a ten percent raise along with lots of new responsibilities. Looks like for me at least the world of work is going to be great and my college training was helpful.
I was so excited to see my first pay stub after my first raise! Even more excited when I saw that they gave me a 17% raise instead of the 10% my promotional letter stated.
I assumed that they would find the mistake and cut my next check down accordingly but the second and third paycheck also gave me the 17% raise. (Instead of the 10% they promised.)
What would you do? Let it be and see what happens and if they find their error in an audit, play dumb, or would you report the overpayment to your supervisor?
This seems an odd % to confuse. Were you given a written notice of what the raise would be? Were you promoted?
Make sure you are looking at your GROSS pay and NOT YOUR NET. Taxes may be figured differently now as may deductions such as insurance. Or if you are contributing a FIXED amount to a 401k as opposed to a percentage. Many reasons this can look off.
This is an HR issue. If you still can't figure it out, talk to them.
Could it be that with this latest raise, the OP has hit the Social Security threshold and is no longer having his half of FICA withheld?
But I agree with the others, and really sit down and do your math before you go and ask if an error has been made. If you've overlooked something obvious, such as the FICA threshold, or deduction of fixed charges not adjusting upwards, asking prematurely could make you the OP look stupid. After everything else has been ruled out, definitely check in with payroll.
The original posting said that the new rate of pay had been given for three paychecks now and the new gross hourly rate was shown. It has nothing to do with deductions or catching up or anything like that. Also the original post said there was an offer letter clearly showing the new rate of pay. It appears someone in payroll made a mistake.
Report it. The company may find it and then deduct the money from your future pay. Having worked in payroll and HR systems for decades they may also just decide to fix it and let you keep the amounts already paid. In any case tell your boss and HR/payroll.
The original posting said that the new rate of pay had been given for three paychecks now and the new gross hourly rate was shown. It has nothing to do with deductions or catching up or anything like that. Also the original post said there was an offer letter clearly showing the new rate of pay. It appears someone in payroll made a mistake.
The OP's original post is absolutely silent on the point of gross pay. It's actually quite silent on a lot of points which is why all of the replies included so many possible suppositions and explanations.
Interestingly, the OP has never come back to eliminate any of the confusions. To the author of this post, you may wish to reconsider your highly imitative board name, and choose a more distinctively different nom de cyber.
Only the most grossly unreasonable payroll department or manager would look askance at you for asking about this. Unless you are a tax professional or finance guru yourself, there is absolutely no shame in not knowing every last detail of withholding/tax codes/etc.
Just calmly inquire with whomever in your company handles such things. Something direct like "I have noticed my last couple of paychecks have been larger than I had anticipated. Am I missing something about how this raise was calculated, or is this something we need to fix before the next pay period?" You will have demonstrated your ethical standards and your attention to detail, and you can stop wondering what is going on.
Sure it is tempting to just take the money and stay quiet, but even aside from the obvious ethical imperative to speak up you are risking a lot professionally if you keep mum about this. If you truly are being overpaid, that fact is incredibly unlikely to stay hidden indefinitely unless you work for a terribly-mismanaged organization. Businesses tend to keep a very close eye on money in and money out, and when they catch the discrepancy you risk losing the trust of your company and having to come up with a large lump sum to repay the money you were never entitled to in the first place.
One of three things is going to happen when you raise this issue: you may find out that you were deliberately given a larger raise and they forgot to tell you, you may find out that through tax rates/differing calculations/some other reason the 10% raise they promised you is correctly showing up in your paychecks at this rate, or you may find out that it was a simple human error and you ought to be drawing smaller paychecks. But whatever the answer, don't you want to know rather than speculating and waiting for the sword of Damocles to fall?
You have to report it, and may already have waited too long. They will likely find their mistake eventually. When they do they will have no choice but to terminate.
You can set up a meeting with payroll to ask them to explain it to you.
I'm a pretty lazy guy and I have direct deposit. I honestly couldn't tell you how much I make each paycheck (I get paid every other week) and I often go many week (sometimes even months) between even looking at my bank account. If the amounts look relatively in the right ballpark I would never notice. Fluctuations of 10% or even 20-30% would go unnoticed to me.
This was a huge problem for me when I was in college and when I first started working back in the day because I would go months between paying bills, etc. But I know have literally all of my expenses taken care of via automated billing so my credit cards are all paid off every months, mortgage is automatically pulled, money is automatically moved over to savings, etc. Every 3-6 months I take a look and move money out into my investment back to invest (savings accounts and checking accounts make way too little in interest to be worthwhile).
I don't think they would terminate you but ethically of course you should bring it up and ask them to explain it to you. Usually in your paycheck it will have a "gross" amount and that should be 10% more than what it was before. Your after taxes/fees/etc net amount may or may not be 10% more.
RVD.
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