Greetings All - I hope some can help with this. If I started a company for my daughter to run and she doesn't take a pay and her friends help and they don't take a pay and then records suddenly get subpoenaed, what can I do?

The bottom line is that the biz barley made enough $$$ to cover rent and all other bills. We needed help so everyone pitched in and volunteered their time. Now, I was just subpoenaed to show records for her (for domestic relations purposes) working there and I have not even given her a dime yet. Any suggestions at all are welcomed and appreciated.

If you or the business has been subpoenaed, you need an attorney. Hopefully, you had one assist you with this start-up.

I did have an attorney help setup but with our lease only... i started the llc online using a service for this in particular. I personally was subpoenaed not the biz and they (my daughters ex's attorney) want me to provide them with all payroll records for "the llc from 07 to present including all 1099's and W2's issued to my daughter. I will get my attorney to get me answers but was hoping someone on here had some suggestions. Thanks for your quick response.

I was just subpoenaed to show records for her (for domestic relations purposes) working there and I have not even given her a dime yet.

Who filed for the subpoena? What is for domestic relations?

It was filed from her Ex for domestic relations...

Oh this is family court if the business is loosing money then hand them over,after consulting with your daughters attorney in the matter.

So does that mean I shouldn't have to worry about the her and her friends volunteering their time at my store? We are getting close to making the biz lucrative however it just hasn't been for the last year. Can family volunteer their time in a family biz? I have not given her any money so I can't really hand them anything...

I guess I was just trying to decipher exactly what you meant. I thank you for responding and stating your thoughts on this. Would you mind just elaborating a bit for me? Thank you so much for your time...

Let me agree with everyone else and say that you need to talk to a local attorney.

You have several very unrelated issues here. Family court issues are way outside of my area of expertise and I am not going to address them. Whatever is true or not true with your family court issues however will have no effect what-so-ever with your labor law issues.

You legally must pay minimum wage and overtime for all hours worked. It is not legally possible for workers to volunteer their time as described. This means that you have potential problems with both federal DOL and your state's DOL. You can try arguing this but this is very black letter law and you will lose. The related laws have been in place for maybe 70 years now and the government is batting something like several million to nothing in court cases on this issue.

If you were only talking members of your immediate family, then maybe you would fail under the "mom and pop" exception for federal rules (FLSA), but this would not necessarily effect state rules. However your daughter's friends working took away any possibility of this exception for everyone.

You are legally required to comply with I-9 and new hire reporting rules. Failure to pay the employee would not directly effect those requirements.

Failure to pay wages ironically means that you have no direct payroll related problems with IRS, state IRS-equivalent and state SUTA since all of the agencies only have interest in getting their piece of wages actually paid. While not paying employee's brasses of DOL, that is a very legal method of avoiding certain problems with IRS. (Our tax dollars at work).