CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — A Chesterfield County man received a tax bill earlier this year for money he never received from the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) and reached out to CBS 6 for help.
Three years ago, Paul Jaszewski started receiving a lot of mail from the VEC—dozens of letters stating he had to pay them back as much as $40,000.
He says he was in a panic.
"I would get, like, 20 or 30 letters in the mailbox, all saying differing amounts," he said. "I was calling and calling, and you just couldn't get through at that time; they were so busy, you know, with all the other people."
Jaszewski was out of work for most of 2020 and the first half of 2021. He received weekly benefits through the VEC.
Two years after he first qualified, they said they believed he left his job as a truck driver and was not laid off.
Frantically, he mailed back each notification, saying he wanted to appeal.
"Never got any kind of person to call me back, never heard from a deputy, never got an explanation," Jaszewski said.
His responses had no effect. Then, a year and a half after the barrage of repayment requests, when Jaszewski had been back at work, he got one piece of mail from the VEC that changed everything.
"Never heard anything. And then in December 2023, they sent me the letter saying they vacated all that amount," he said.
Jaszewski thought that appeal officer's judgment, waiving the VEC's claim because so much time had elapsed, settled everything.
He was laid off last summer for four weeks.
"Four weeks of accumulating, but I never got a check. Never got anything deposited," he said.
Jaszewski never received the benefits the VEC said he qualified for, and again, reaching someone there to find out why was a struggle.
"I did manage to get through in 2024, and they said it was because I owed all that money from the past and that they would just collect it and pay that off," Jaszewski said.
Somehow, despite that 2023 letter, the VEC's claim had new life and was preventing Jaszewski from collecting this much later unemployment claim. Then he received a tax form for the money he never got.
"I just decided to drop the whole idea until I got a 1099-G, and that's when I came to Channel 6, saying this is just not fair. I went there for help for the four weeks that I was off work, and instead, I've got to pay taxes on it," he explained.
CBS 6 reached out to the VEC. A statement from communications chief Kerri O'Brien said, in part, they've worked through most of the pandemic backlog and:
"To give a sense of scale, just since November 2024, VEC has implemented more than 7,000 appeal decisions. While the vast majority are processed accurately, with that volume, rare mistakes can happen. That’s why VEC values collaboration with stakeholders, community partners, and reporters like you who help bring important concerns to our attention."
The clarification came as welcome news for Jaszewski.
"I called in, and you guys came, and immediately they deposited what was owed to me," he said.
Jaszewski says one of the ironies of his case is that he never got the chance to prove he had been laid off because he never received a proper appeal hearing. He said he's glad that chapter is over.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
📲: CONNECT WITH US
Blue Sky| Facebook| Instagram| X| Threads| TikTok| YouTube
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
