<prompt> Human: Context: Live and work in northern californiaIn a nutshell our HR girl screwed up and entered my full quarterly commission to be paid out in a single paycheck instead of over 3 months. I noticed 3 weeks later when ANOTHER employee mentioned their check was off.I alerted HR immediately and they said Yep youre right. So you wont receive any commission for the next two months to offset the two months you were overpaid. HR girl then happened to quit so now Im dealing directly with the VP of Finance.He is adamant that I was pre-paid not overpaid and as a result theyre allowed to not pay me monthly commission like in my contract until the gross is evened out.However because it was a lump sum commission there was a TON withheld in taxes. And from my numbers it looks like more was withheld than if Id been paid out each month as I should have been.When I approached my boss with these numbers he said hed talk to VP of Finance. I then 30 minutes later were pulled into a room with my boss and said VP - who then said This is whats happening because we pre-paid you. You wont receive commission for the next two months since you already received it last month. If you need a draw were happy to give you oneHere are my questions...1 - Is there a legal difference between pre-payment and overpayment? Do I care? Hes so adamant about the distinction its making me not trust there isnt a reason behind it2 - Why are they insisting on effectively withholding two full commission checks and issuing a draw if I want one? Why cant we just do a repayment of like 25 the amount over 4 months? VP is saying since it was a pre-pay they can only do draws.3 - Are they allowed to ask for gross back? Im concerned if they withhold two commission checks the net will be I was taxed 3 times once on the pre-payment and again each of the two months theyre not paying me...4 - How the hell do I navigate this at a small company without committing career suicide? I like my job - and while this is seriously making me question if I should still work here I dont have a backup plan yet.HELP!Edit - Thanks for the frank talk everyone. To be clear - Im not trying to dodge repaying!! And its only uncomfortable because I have a very tight budget because Ive been trying to build UP my savings...Also the reason why I wasnt trusting their numbers and the taxes was because the netgross they were showing me didnt add up. They came back today and said Whoops we messed up the numbers again. We do need to withhold two months but heres how that breaks down - sorry for the confusion all the numbers made sense so were good!!  <response>: 3 - Are they allowed to ask for gross back? Im concerned if they withhold two commission checks the net will be I was taxed 3 times once on the pre-payment and again each of the two months theyre not paying me...I dont understand what youre concerned about here, but there will be no tax impact, particularly since the mistake and correction dont span tax years. 