Dear Liz: A parent recently wrote to you about a son who was being paid as a contractor. I know someone else who got a job that did not “take out taxes from his paycheck.” Such workers believe they are pocketing more money, but unfortunately, too many do not know about the nature of withholding. They only learn if they choose to file for their expected refund, but instead discover an exorbitant tax liability that a paycheck-to-paycheck worker cannot pay.
The sad fact is that many of these employers improperly classify their workers, who are truly employees, as independent contractors! And they do this to avoid paying their own portion of Social Security and unemployment taxes and also workers compensation insurance.
If workers believe that they have been misclassified (the IRS website provides all criteria), they can file IRS Form SS-8 and Form 8919, which will allow them to pay only their allocated half of their Social Security taxes. Hopefully the IRS will then contact these employers to correct their wrong classifications. And finally, it should be a law that, when hired, all true independent contractors should be given a clear form (not fine print on their employment agreements) that informs them of their status and the need to make estimated tax payments.
Answer: A big factor in determining whether a worker is an employee or contractor is control. Who controls what the worker does and how the worker does the job? The more control that’s in the employer’s hands, the more likely the worker is an employee.
However, the IRS notes that there are no hard and fast rules and that “factors which are relevant in one situation may not be relevant in another.”
The form you mentioned, IRS Form SS-8, also can be filed by any employer unsure if a worker is properly classified.
Is this a process that gig workers who feel they are misclassified to get reclassified as employees instead of as a contractor?