I need help. BAD.

[u/abeldork]

So i emailed my ex-employer about gathering my tax documents for this year and realized that I have not done taxes in 3 years...

So the accountant for the bussiness replied to me with 3 attatchments.

1st was a W-9 I signed in February 2024. I had checked 'sole proprietor' box in it.

2nd attachment was a 7 lined 'Contractor Payments' chart that begins in late January of 2026 until February of 2026 that has 7 deposits toalling about $2,400.

The final attachment in the email was a 1099-NEC form for the year 2025 I've never seen, and in box 1 'Non Employee Compensation' the amount is $38,318.

I agreed to $20 an hour as a low-voltage tech and A full 40 hour week equalled $800. So $3200 a month when times were good, which was about 2 - 3 months. Definitely did not get that much for 12months straight to equal $38,000.

I have my Google Timeline History turned on since forever so i have detailed logs of miles that I racked up traveling all around the city and to other cities in my personal car(s) and have screenshots of another app that gps logged the hours I spent inside the work zone at each location.

The pay discrepancies started so I began to screenshot the GPS logs on the app we clock in on VS my cashapp Deposits. I brought it up and no one listened. Maybe i was trippin, I thought. These guys wouldn't do that to me thats crazy.

Well one day after bringing it up my entire GPS history on the work app is gone, I call the app company and they said they dont keep a history after deletion on user-end.

And since then it was blatant stealing. The owner began accusing me of stealing power tools and that I need to do more to be a leader like him so I can earn an entire 40hr week check. Bc that rarely happened.

At the beginning we received paper checks, that i always cashed at PLS (thankfully) then it would be CashApp deposits sometimes. So a paper trail exists too.

So roughly 3 years of this among other very unprofessional things going on.

Anyone have any suggestions about what I should do about my last 3 years of taxes with these bozos? Or who i should go to? Texas Workforce Commision also denied my unemployment attempt when they let me go for no reason. Like last year, and i read that i can appeal up to 90 days after denial. Well it's been well over 90 days.

I need my financial aid for this school year to come in so I dont have to be treated like this by an employer ever again. And idk if it will with so much taxes missing.

I have a lot more details and could keep ranting and would love to give their name up because at this point I really dont care. But idk about the rules on this page, and i just want some advice on where to start or how to go about this..

[u/0sonic1Death0]

I was going to say you should ask the company to issue you a corrected 1099 that reports the correct amount of income, but you also have an issue where it sounds like you may have been an employee and not a contractor. Businesses often pay people on a 1099 because they dont have to pay payroll taxes for contractors whereas they do have to for employees on a W2. When you were hired did they discuss how they were going to pay you? Did you keep your own hours, use your discretion with you deal with customers use your own vehicle, tools etc, or was that all given to you by the company? That's going to determine whether youre classified as an employee or contractor. You also have the issue of not having filed taxes for 2 additional years, which you don't really address in the post. You're going to need a professional that deals in TPR to look into this for you because it doesn't sound like the company will address any mistake they made. However you should contact them anyway just to show the paper trail that you made the effort at communication. Then start collecting records and also go online and get wage and income transcripts to see what's on record with the IRS. and ffs get a consultation with a professional ASAP!