Uh what does this mean..
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@Dashrender said:
- The extent to which the worker makes services available to other employers. Independent contractors are more likely to make their services available to other employers.
Not according to Scott and the claim that many high level IT personal are actually contracted with firms, not employees because they don't show up as an expense and are less likely to be let go during staff reductions
That's contracting in the way that most IT people use it, not legal contracting. Legal contracting, which we solely care about in this discussion, is how the IRS sees it. When I worked for the bank I was through a staffing firm so not put on the books. Yet I was a full employee of the bank legally.
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@IRJ said:
@Dashrender said:
I had a friend that worked a consulting company - that consulting company (for lack of a better term) rented out employees to other business for 6 month to 1 year contracts. Who does that employee work for? the consulting company or the renting company?
That is basically what I did. It is different than working for a MSP, because ALL your daily tasks come from COMPANY1. The staffing company just wrote the paychecks. COMPANY1 paid Staffing company and the Staffing company wrote a check to me for 70% or whatever they were paid and kept the 30%. (I am guessing on the numbers, but I would suppose it was something similar to that.). I never talked to the staffing company, my hours, tasks, and everything else about my job was approved by COMPANY1.
that's what I had assumed. I have done this a lot, too. In this case, you are a very clear employee of COMPANY1 and the staffing firm is just a payroll service.
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@Dashrender said:
@IRJ said:
@Dashrender said:
I had a friend that worked a consulting company - that consulting company (for lack of a better term) rented out employees to other business for 6 month to 1 year contracts. Who does that employee work for? the consulting company or the renting company?
That is basically what I did. It is different than working for a MSP, because ALL your daily tasks come from COMPANY1. The staffing company just wrote the paychecks. COMPANY1 paid Staffing company and the Staffing company wrote a check to me for 70% or whatever they were paid and kept the 30%. (I am guessing on the numbers, but I would suppose it was something similar to that.). I never talked to the staffing company, my hours, tasks, and everything else about my job was approved by COMPANY1.
And things just keep getting weirder.
So my employer, a medical office, considered laying off their entire workforce, and hiring a company that would employ the entire staff, and staff them back to my company.
The purpose for doing this was to reduce the cost of health insurance to the company.Medical offices pay very high medical insurance rates (I'm guessing numbers wise their employees use medical insurance more than the norm, so the rates reflect that).
The use of a staffing company is a loophole that could have been used to have the appearance that these employees worked for a non medical office, thus lowering the rates.
The staffing company is who would actually be providing all benefits, but of course all of those expenses would be passed back to the medical office.
Discuss.
That would actually qualify as insurance fraud as the employees, when getting insurance, would have to state the medical office as the employer. Should anyone report it to the insurance company, it would be a major lawsuit. It's not a loophole, it's actually fraud.
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@Dashrender said:
The staffing company is who would actually be providing all benefits, but of course all of those expenses would be passed back to the medical office.
With the assumption that the staffing firm would collude with the medical office to claim to be the employer, which is false. This would require employment fraud to support the insurance fraud.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
- The extent to which the worker has business expenses that are not reimbursed. Independent contractors are more likely to have unreimbursed expenses.
I don't understand this one.
Employees get reimbursed for work expenses. A job cannot ask you to pay to work. But a contractor can be made to pay to work.
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@Dashrender said:
- How the business pays the worker. An employee is generally paid by the hour, week, or month. An independent contractor is usually paid by the job.
What is usually? As a consultant/contractor I was primarily paid an hourly rate (but definitely not a wage)
Usually always means more than 50% of the time.
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@Dashrender said:
- Whether the business provides the worker with employee benefits, such as insurance, a pension plan, vacation pay, or sick pay. Independent contractors generally do not get benefits.
I consider this a biggie - I don't know of any contractors who get benefits from people they are doing jobs for. I wonder if the OP did?
These days they pretty much all do since it is a law in the US. All high end ones get benefits, I know hardly anyone outside of entry level that do not. But most contracting, at least traditionally, was people unable to find better work, so that entry level base is pretty large. I'd say most doing what you call contracting in the IT sense do not get benefits - from anywhere.
Remember like I said this list was from the 1099 vs W2 listing so that is where this applies. In my case as a contractor at the big bank, I got vacations from the bank and health from the staffing firm.
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@Dashrender said:
- The terms of the working relationship. An employee generally is employed at will (meaning the relationship can be terminated by either party at any time). An independent contractor is usually hired for a set period.
Again with the IT Pros mentioned above, are those contracts at will, or more typically yearly or something less?
All EMPLOYMENT is at will. If you work for the contracting firm OR the client, you are at will. It is when there is no employment at all that this comes into play. But the contract itself is not at will between the staffing firm and the customer.
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@Dashrender said:
- Whether the worker's services are a key aspect of the company's regular business. If the services are necessary for regular business activity, it is more likely that the employer has the right to direct and control the worker's activities. The more control an employer exerts over a worker, the more likely it is that the worker will be considered an employee.
How would the contracted above listed IT Pros not be completely led by the 'employer?
- What instructions the employer gives the worker about when, where, and how to work. The more specific the instructions and the more control exercised, the more likely the worker will be considered an employee.
Same question as above.
No serious IT firm lets the clients oversee consultants nor would any sensible firm hiring them do so as that would completely defeat the purpose of hiring them. You hire an MSP, for example, so that you get the management chain. For example, everyone at NTG is directed by @art_of_shred. If a client asks you to work and Art says you are off, you are off. Client has no input to you.
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@Dashrender said:
- Whether the business provides the worker with employee benefits, such as insurance, a pension plan, vacation pay, or sick pay. Independent contractors generally do not get benefits.
I consider this a biggie - I don't know of any contractors who get benefits from people they are doing jobs for. I wonder if the OP did?
It depends on the contract. In this particular instance, yes. Sometimes in contracting you will get paid a significantly higher rate and not be given a choice for insurance. This is generally in 1099 situations. Most of the time as an employee you offered benefits, if it's a decent job that wants decent people.
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@IRJ said:
@Dashrender said:
- Whether the business provides the worker with employee benefits, such as insurance, a pension plan, vacation pay, or sick pay. Independent contractors generally do not get benefits.
I consider this a biggie - I don't know of any contractors who get benefits from people they are doing jobs for. I wonder if the OP did?
It depends on the contract. In this particular instance, yes. Sometimes in contracting you will get paid a significantly higher rate and not be given a choice for insurance. This is generally in 1099 situations. Most of the time as an employee you offered benefits, if it's a decent job that wants decent people.
But 1099 is what is in the list above.... if you are directed by the "client" then the 1099 isn't valid and they have to provide insurance.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
@Dashrender said:
- Whether the business provides the worker with employee benefits, such as insurance, a pension plan, vacation pay, or sick pay. Independent contractors generally do not get benefits.
I consider this a biggie - I don't know of any contractors who get benefits from people they are doing jobs for. I wonder if the OP did?
It depends on the contract. In this particular instance, yes. Sometimes in contracting you will get paid a significantly higher rate and not be given a choice for insurance. This is generally in 1099 situations. Most of the time as an employee you offered benefits, if it's a decent job that wants decent people.
But 1099 is what is in the list above.... if you are directed by the "client" then the 1099 isn't valid and they have to provide insurance.
I don't believe they have to offer insurance, although most decent jobs that want decent people will.
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@IRJ said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
@Dashrender said:
- Whether the business provides the worker with employee benefits, such as insurance, a pension plan, vacation pay, or sick pay. Independent contractors generally do not get benefits.
I consider this a biggie - I don't know of any contractors who get benefits from people they are doing jobs for. I wonder if the OP did?
It depends on the contract. In this particular instance, yes. Sometimes in contracting you will get paid a significantly higher rate and not be given a choice for insurance. This is generally in 1099 situations. Most of the time as an employee you offered benefits, if it's a decent job that wants decent people.
But 1099 is what is in the list above.... if you are directed by the "client" then the 1099 isn't valid and they have to provide insurance.
I don't believe they have to offer insurance, although most decent jobs that want decent people will.
No, they don't "have" to, but they get fined if they do not. No one "has to" do anything, if you consider legal penalties to be an "optional payment." But legally, they have to.
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I'm just more muddied now.
So in the case of these IT people working for those mega corps, who higher contractors, not employees so they aren't on the books as employees, but yet are treated completely as if they are employees, and in the eyes of the IRS - ARE employees, so what? it's a fraud to the stock holders?
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@Dashrender said:
I'm just more muddied now.
So in the case of these IT people working for those mega corps, who higher contractors, not employees so they aren't on the books as employees, but yet are treated completely as if they are employees, and in the eyes of the IRS - ARE employees, so what? it's a fraud to the stock holders?
No, just playing to the stockholder's own stupidity. The stockholders are trying to game the system, the company is gaming back.
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Create a metric and people will always game it, it is the nature of metrics.
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Does the company have to pay the matching portions of FICA for those contractors?
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@Dashrender said:
Does the company have to pay the matching portions of FICA for those contractors?
Of course.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Does the company have to pay the matching portions of FICA for those contractors?
Of course.
OK I didn't expect that - to me that makes them full blown employees, and from my point of view, this is pure fraud against the investors.
Do those people count as employees? Like when a company says they have 80,000 employees?
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@Dashrender said:
OK I didn't expect that - to me that makes them full blown employees, and from my point of view, this is pure fraud against the investors.
They ARE full blown employees. There are no half employees. To the IRS they are staff.
Do those people count as employees? Like when a company says they have 80,000 employees?
No, and they never call them employees even to the employees. Employees normally only find out that they are employees if they need to file an IRS complaint.
