Are You Ready? Personal Prep for Season

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Rich

I'm amazed at how many officials in my area are bothered when they are asked to fill out a W9....or worse, when they are paid by Direct Deposit.

My response is always of the nature of....."Why does it matter since all officiating income is taxable?" I smile when I say this, since I know the only reason people care is cause they feel that this alone means they have to pay taxes.

I have an issue with some of this because it delays the process to get paid. I do not care that I have to fill out paperwork, but we us Arbiter which already has all that information they basically need but a signature. I really do not care about filling out paperwork, but it seems that many schools do not review it.

I have had schools not only not pay attention to the information I filled out on a voucher, they sent to the wrong address or call me to find out what was the right address. Again, everything we have is on Arbiter. And in the case of an IHSA official, all our address information is also on their website.

Last year just to get paid at one of the schools, we had to fill out an online voucher that did not get processed properly. And mostly, who is reviewing this information? I am giving you my social security number and I have no idea who sees or can review the information. Because when we sign this information, we are not giving it to the people in the business office. We are giving the information to some "host" who may or may not be a teacher or even administrator and they could do a lot with that information and we would not know.

Peace