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Comment by CannisterFlux | Hacker News Reader

An interesting take on this in Spain recently was that unpaid overtime was effectively "robbing from state taxes", because those extra hours should have been paid and so contribute to the government coffers. This resulted in a law (mostly defanged, self reports and no real punishment) that companies must track the time employees spend at work.

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Why is "unpaid overtime is robbing from state taxes" a better argument than "unpaid overtime is robbing from workers"?

To get someone (the government in this case) to care (change rules) it sometimes helps to frame a problem in a way that affects them. Maybe?

That's sad that a government wouldn't see its citizens being robbed as a problem that affects them, as governments are directly responsible for the regulatory environment in which we all do business.

In US, government is more run like a business, could we collect more revenue? yes? it's a good idea!!!

To be fair to the US, it is the same in many other countries too.

If people allow themselves to be robbed, and millions do everyday, there is nothing the government can do about it, just as if they are robbed by a mugger. If people aren't reporting it, then nothing will change.

Feels less selfish, and also undermines any kind of “look at XX, heroically giving his time for the success of the company” retort

Sounds a bit like an old ‘legal fiction’ in England - person A claimed that they were unable to pay their taxes because person B owed them money so sued them in the Court of Exchequer (which was not supposed to hear disputes between two subjects but could hear disputes between people who owed the Crown money and the Crown). As the court was a bit more efficient at the time than some of the alternatives and everyone wanted a speedy resolution to the dispute, no one challenged the (non-existent) debt to the Crown.

Because the government (we call it "The State" here) can make a law to fuck everyone while we workers are powerless.

A few possible reasons come to mind.

The government may not have standing to sue on the worker's behalf.

The agency that prosecutes tax fraud may be larger and better funded than the agency that protects workers.

One tax evasion charge may combine the cases of thousands of affected workers into one case, where the individual cases are too small and time consuming to pursue.

The penalties for tax evasion may be more severe than the penalties for wage theft.

Because then the government actually pays attention.

That argument doesn’t really make sense.

1) paid time is taxed 2) unpaid overtime is not taxed 3) untaxed work effectively evades taxes 4) unpaid overtime is tax evasion.

which step don't you agree with?

I misread the comment.

1) Wages are taxed, not work. If there is no money paid there is no tax evasion.

2) Unpaid overtime is not really unpaid unless your employment agreement explicitly states that you are not supposed to work more than 40 hours. If you get paid $100k to work 50 hours, then you are getting paid $100k to work 50 hours, not $100k to work the first 40 and $0 to work the next 10. Your comp is payment all the hours you work, not just the first 40.

At least in the US, not sure about the EU, but unless your profession is explicitly exempt salaried employees are still owed overtime. Unless a job explicitly states the number of hours an employee is to work it's assumed it's 40 hours.

Of course there are exceptions, such as programmers.

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