<prompt> Human: This was the only subreddit I could think of for posting this and Im concerned about legality, also what this means for company health if youve seen this before.I work for a startup going on 10 years old. Technical company. Company started well, good years while ARRA was on, but times have gotten much tighter. In addition to that, the company owners have expanded aggressively and taken on a lot more overhead than they can really afford, afaik. Mostly in terms of buildingsinfrastructure. As money has gotten tighter there have been no bonuses for the last two years, and this year we had another issue.Turns out employee contributions to 401K money taken out of employee checks was not being paid into employee 401K accounts. on top of that the company matches were not being paid. This went on here and there for months in 2014. More than a half dozen employees were affected. When questions were kicked up to front office it was sort of admitted that the money was needed to pay bills. We use a lot of expensive equipment, have high power bills and over 40 workers now. I am pretty sure the company contributions were eventually paid in months later. Company contributions still are not in.AFAIK I am not an accountant or CPA or lawyer the company has until tax date the next year to make their contributions. But dont the employee contributions have to go in immediately? Otherwise thats basically theft. I was thinking of starting to pay into that to try and get some retirement funding going, but seeing this has me glad I have never signed up for it. It deprives me of the possible matching cash I would get but it has also been depriving whatever interest they would have been making.Is this embezzlement? How illegal is it? Can these people go to prison for it? Has anybody else ever seen this at their company and if so, what did it portend for your company going forward? Wondering what I should be doing with the money I was going to put in there because I cannot trust these people. Sorry for the long winded post. Throwaway. Duh.  <response>: Yes, it is illegal. Stop your contributions until they straighten it out and look into your legal remedies. Also, pull together documentation that the money was being withheld so you can follow the money.Thats is super shitty. I hope they get nailed to the wall. 