Thursday, October 18, 2007

The Brian Westbrook Overpayment Saga Continues

Last year the Eagles overpaid Brian Westbrook.

Literally.

They paid him a $3 million roster bonus twice, no doubt to the great consternation of the front office and the unfortunate individuals in human resources or payroll who pushed the button on the error. Seems like everyone admitted that the overpayment occurred, but the money still hasn't repaid.

To quote Westbrook from the linked article, "it's a bad situation."

The sides agree that the monies need to be repaid (the Birds would be over the salary cap if it were not), but there are complications. For example, Westbrook received $1.7 million after taxes were withheld, and the Eagles need the entire $3 million returned, meaning that Westbrook will have to petition the tax authorities for refunds of the $1.3 million in taxes that were withheld. That sounds like a ton of fun, doesn't it?

In the end, it's an unfortunate distraction for a team that has had plenty of them already. The Eagles erred by making the payment, and Westbrook's agents (or Westbrook himself) should have caught the error promptly after the payment and tried to resolve it then and there (that still might not have made the return of the withholding taxes any easier, presumably, but perhaps it would have had the error been caught right away).

What a mess.

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