[x0x0]

Unpaid employment taxes too -- the cxx levels, the investors, the board, and every single employee who paid any other expense instead of paying the US gov their money.

I wrote more about this in the past, but even bookkeepers have been held personally liable. The government considers employment taxes to be paid by the employee on the date the employee receives his or her paycheck, and the employer is merely holding on to that money temporarily. It seems quite unwise to fuck with this.

more examples here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8081173

[walshemj]

Would that not mean that US companies go bust at the slightest hint of cashflow problems

[adventured]

US companies will usually either pay their employees first, or fire employees before they can't pay them.

You can float a lot of other bills in various ways, but if a company gets to the point of not being able to make payroll, it's basically game over.

[detaro]

Not paying your employees is the first thing you do when you have a hint of cashflow problems?

[walshemj]

No I meant that in order to avoid any possibility of personal liability the C team would give up and liquidate the company much faster than the UK where more efforts might be made.

I have direct experience of this - I even chaired a share holder meeting about a refinancing.

[prostoalex]

Before liquidation there's an option of layoffs and raising additional debt.

Most of US payroll is on a biweekly system, so it's hard to accummulate too much liability as far as employee payroll goes.