Complicated… Especially if you’re a contract 1099 worker…
A U.S. Labor Department regulation that takes effect on March 11 could require many businesses that treat workers as independent contractors to start paying them as employees — although it’s still unclear how much of a difference it will make in practice.
The new rule is 339 pages long and is so complicated and hard to apply that “employers will never know whether they got it right unless they say someone is an employee,” said Marc Freedman, vice president for employment policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Full article HERE from Courthouse News.
I’m glad I’m pretty much out of the contracting/consulting business these days.
I’m not going to bother reading it, but if you’re doing a lot of freelance/contract stuff, it might be a good idea to at least familiarize yourself with what is in that mess.
I’m not a lawyer, don’t play one on TV, and I sure as hell didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night.
And apparently there has been a ‘stay’ issued by a judge, HERE from MSN.
Got to bring everyone into the fold. Can’t have people running around doing what they want to do, when they want to do it. Smells too much like freedom.
Despite their repeated assurances that they want to help the “little guy/gal/xi/xir” the libs want to eliminate the gig economy. It’s too easy for delivery people, Uber drivers, day laborers, etc. to be paid in cash and “neglect” to report income. I see these regs as creating more hurdles for gig workers and their employers.
The whole point is to mix “arbitrary and capricious” with “random and nonsensical”, so they can choose to prosecute anyone they wish.
This is reminding me of IR35 contracting changes imposed in the UK by Inland Revenue in April of 2021. They were about as complex, burdensome, and awful as what’s being mentioned here, and it was all about making sure everyone pays ‘their fair share’ (which is commie for: “Give us everything you have, pleb, and then die.”)
Off topic rant removed.
They’re trying to destroy the ‘gig’ economy. The government has never liked anyone other than Doctors or Lawyers being able to hang out their shingle and sell there services (there are laws -specifically- aimed at Engineers to keep them from doing this).
It’s really all part of the democrats efforts to destroy the middle-class and usher in a new age of slavery… err Communism. You can’t be a commie country if everyone other then the anointed few aren’t serfs. That’s why the middle-class’s earning power hasn’t gone up in decades.
Now they’re just trying to put an end to those who have figured out how to climb up out of that hole.
They don’t much like Doctors doing it anymore, either. And they seem determined to remove any Lawyers from the field if they represent the “wrong” clients.
339 pages, and it probably cross-references other regulations and statutes. Like what happened when various schools asked Congress to clarify exactly what one paragraph in Title IX meant about women’s college sports being equal with men’s. 100+ pages later …
The o noy way the employer can be sure they got things right under his law is to declare the contractor an employee….which is EXACTLY what the goal of this law is. The criminals in power want EVERYONE to be an en employee of a company. They can easily control the companies and by extension the employees. To the left ALL that matters is control.
There’s a friend that I do 1099 stuff for on the side and when I’m between jobs he often hires me just so I have insurance coverage.
This could get weird.
Personally, I think if anyone signs a contract that relieves any company of all responsibility of taxes, FICA, or personal insurance for the individual, that person is a contract worker. Whether they pay their taxes, contribute to FICA or have health insurance isn’t the responsibility of the employer, which is what the government doesn’t want. That’s why the regulations are so cumbersome and require too many public workers. Regulations give bureaucrats, and other public workers, job security and power they shouldn’t have.
Employees are children. They cannot be trusted to pay their own taxes, sort their own insurance and manage their own superannuation…
Employers are the enemy, so there is no compunction about treating them as forced labour We must do all these things for employees while not getting pad for the time and work involved.
The benefit in both cases, goes to Government and their cronies. The amount of money that has gone into the big Super and Insurance funds is almost incomprehensible. Many of them are run by the Big Unions – who are the largest donors to the Party that created all these scams.
……and you wonder why nobody wants to employ people?
I’m a very small business that has labour maybe two weeks of the year. It’s still worth my while to pay a book-keeper for a couple of hours per month just to make sure everything is done right before it goes to the accountant.
All- Good points, and yes, even more confusion before (or if) this ever gets sorted out…
Worked as a “road warrior” for 18 years. Working for multiple corporations in a year. Got paid well along with per-diem. End of year gathered up 7/10 1099’s and filed. Of course I wasn’t getting any kind of hidden money. Then 2008 happened and that was pretty much the end of our little niche market. But was ready to retire anyway.