Hi, my employer is based in another state, but I work remotely as a sales rep in PA.

The company fiscal year is Nov-Oct, so it has ended.

I have a company vehicle that I am allowed to use for personal use, but for those miles I have to count as income and I am taxed on that income accordingly. I am required to report the mileage personal vs business.

The vast majority of use of this car is for business use, as I have customers all over the NE US and eastern Canada.

When I was expecting my most recent paycheck, it was very very small (~10% of normal) so I checked and the reason was the company had used this pay period to withhold my personal car use tax liability for the previous fiscal year 23/24 company fiscal year). After some discussion, it was found that finance reported 0% of my car use as business. So all the taxable use of the car (like 20K miles) was withheld from my pay.

I reported my personal use via an app and I am unable to go back and see the history, since I just got a new gas card and it only shows the use of the new card. But I did report it accurately. The HR lady I was directed to was pretty friendly at first and tried to send finance the updated mileage. But toward the end she told me there was nothing she could do. She also began to imply that “no one else had that issue” and that “I should have submitted my miles” (I did) there was another person on my team who had a very similar issue.

So my question: I believe I could just wait until I file taxes and report this and get it back in a refund. However, it is causing hardship to basically skip a paycheck. I have escalated this to the highest HR level I could and been denied. Would I be justified to submit a wage claim here? I am particularly curious since the company tax year is over. Even if I didn’t report until right now, aren’t they required to return the withholding?

I have never had any issues with pay/HR and generally the company has been fair to employees. For the record.