Help Wanted: What constitutes overtime

Employers can establish their work weeks, said Irv Miljoner, who heads the Long Island office of the U.S. Labor Department. It doesn't have to be Monday through Friday. A workweek can have any beginning and end point as long as it's an unbroken period of 168 hours.

"But they have to be consistent," Miljoner said. "They can't manipulate it from week to week for purposes of evading the overtime requirement."

You are not alone in your confusion. Miljoner said the question is a common one. Hopefully, you now know when overtime kicks in.

Your wife should ask her company or the payroll service to deduct all the taxes.

"Regardless of the amount of the income, if the individual wants to have New York State taxes withheld on her commission check, she should ask the employer or payroll processor to do so," the department said.

In fact she can help the process along by providing her employer or the payroll service a copy of the department's guidelines on how to tax supplemental wages such as commissions. Go to Newsday.com/business for the link.

If the problem still persists after she speaks with her employer, she should contact the department.

For more on deducting state taxes from commissions, go to http://bit.ly/X9905r. For contact information for the state Department of Taxation and Finance, go to http://bit.ly/Z08UQY.

"I just wanted to share with you the response we got from the Department of Labor. According to them, this employee quit his job without good cause, and no employment insurance benefits will be paid. Because he didn't contact his supervisor, his actions constitute job abandonment, which is voluntary quit. Thank you for your help!"