That sounds like a very bad company to work for. Debts of founders are not guaranteed by the employees for a good reason (even more risk without upside), founders that go into debt in order to finance their start-up and put up personal guarantees are obviously in a different class than founders that externalize all or most of the risk. If the IRS goes after founders for not paying payroll taxes when money is tight then they more than likely have a reasonable cause to do so. I've seen one such case up close and I didn't fault the local tax arm one bit when they decided to go after the founders. After all, if you allow founders enough leeway to pass the risk of their business on to society then they will take even more risk.

Better to fold than to not pay payroll tax, or, alternatively, talk to the tax man and see if you can work out some kind of a deal. Simply not paying is illegal and will get you in seriously hot water.

As an employee you are insulated from that but that's simply bad business and bad management and nobody forces anybody to do such things.