"Friend of a friend" - nothing suspicious there, it must be true. "Might have reversed the co's" - yup, might or might not, 100% true story. edit: And a bit further down the thread: "I don't know him."
In some remote case this is true, 2 full-time contracts can be downright illegal to have. And tax office might be very interested at the end of the year.
Why would they care at all? If he's full-time on both, then he's having the taxes deducted from his wages. In fact, he'll get a refund at the end of the year because he's overpaying FICA (6% up to $110k on both jobs, when his maximum contribution should just be 6% up to $110k (not exact numbers)).
If he's a contractor, then he has to pay estimated taxes on both jobs, just like someone would with 1 job.
In either case, as long as he does proper accounting like anyone with 1 job would need to, he'll be fine in the IRS's eyes.
IRS basically never starts investigations from what was in tax returns as long as they get their money so they don't scare off people from filing tax returns and paying taxes.
Another consideration, if this person is able to complete their work in half the time then this person was brought on at a responsibility level that was too low. Theoretically, the job should be taking 40 hours. It's the company's responsibility to load balance the tasks for their employee's to fill an FTE's schedule.
Who on earth has the ability to do that?
If I had some "marketing manager" title at Facebook, why couldn't I also do the same work at Chase Bank or some other non-competitor, if both were willing to hire me on a WFH basis? What ethical line does that really cross?
Personally I'd think it a matter of taste or etiquette. If I were a full time employee (FTE) at one company, working for another company would personally be a bit of a betrayal of my first employer.
Generally, if you want to work less it's an option to take an easier job. However, in this instance it seems a severe underutilization to pay a tech salary (40hrs) for potentially (55/2)hrs of work. The company isn't getting it's due, and likely the employee isn't either.
As long as you didn’t do anything stupid about withholding (and even then, it’s just a $ penalty you pay April 15 if you way underpaid multiple years), I don’t see why they would care. They don’t care if you have multiple part time jobs either as long as you pay your income tax.
Now if you’re in an at will employment job then the employer can just fire you if they don’t like what you’re doing, but the same is true if they woke up cranky on a Tuesday. If you read your offer letter they make it sound like some sort of law from on high that lets them do this but it’s just a basic principle of employment in an At-Will arrangement.
You might be able to negotiate that away, if you really tried.
But breaching a contract isn't illegal. There's no tax issues, the IRS and the FTB don't care how many employers you have. Without due care, withholding will be off more than normal, but both employers will withhold for employee social security, and assuming combined wages are over the contribution limit, there will be a refund of overcontributions. Having two employers in one year makes it possible to overcontribute to 401k, but that's managable.
Also, the only thing that's a problem is the employment contract. They both surely have clauses about working for someone else in the industry, and/or listing any side businesses.
If the roles are very different, it could be clear cut. If the roles have substantial overlap though...
I know when the agency I worked for worked with Disney we signed an exclusivity agreement that we could not work with paramount MGM universal etc.
If there is something specific in the contract, it is a civil issue.
Where is the harm here? If you are a FTE what is the implication that you can’t work elsewhere as well? Is it in the employment agreement? If so I would say that seems illegal.
It's definitely plausible but not sustainable. If found out they might lose both jobs and alienate themselves from two major players in the IT business.