4 ms·

The hell it is. If you want people to work for you, you get an employment contract together. If they're employees, you pay them, and you do W2 withholding. The

The hell it is. If you want people to work for you, you get an employment contract together. If they're employees, you pay them, and you do W2 withholding. The engineer in question was married to the founder's sister, and she died. Obviously there was a lot of personal relationship intertwined into the business relationship. In addition, there's a traumatic event in the lives of both the founder and the engineer. This probably meant there was no real contract, thus judges could swing in favor of either one of them. Your comment makes it seem like this is a typical business vs. the contractor case, which it isn't.

tptacek 16y ago
I hear what you're saying, but all these mitigating factors that you bring up appear to make it less likely that the guy was simply an employee of the company. This is again again opposite of a typical employee/contractor status dispute. Same issues, but the company wants things playing out in the "employee" direction so they can claim IP.
- starkfist 16y ago
  Yeah, you're right. I needed to reread the story to figure out what was going on with the case.
ahoyhere 16y ago
The IRS doesn't care if there's an agreement, when it comes to determining employee vs contractor. The rules are very clear: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.html http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.h...
- wglb 16y ago
  Well, they are spelled out, but there is still a lot of unclarity in the execution of these rules. Enough so that some large consumers of contractors make everyone go through another consulting organization. As an example, the phrase Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job? seems a bit open to interpretation. Lets say you are a contractor working on a BFE Java or .net application. The project has its source control rules, its status reporting rules, its code convention rules, and all are likely under the control of an employee of the company in question. Sounds like the company has the right to control in this very common case. So I argue that the rules may be extensive, but they are not very clear.
- starkfist 16y ago
  I couldn't figure out if the guy was an employee, contractor, or founder...

tptacek 16y ago

I hear what you're saying, but all these mitigating factors that you bring up appear to make it less likely that the guy was simply an employee of the company. This is again again opposite of a typical employee/contractor status dispute. Same issues, but the company wants things playing out in the "employee" direction so they can claim IP.

starkfist 16y ago
Yeah, you're right. I needed to reread the story to figure out what was going on with the case.

ahoyhere 16y ago

The IRS doesn't care if there's an agreement, when it comes to determining employee vs contractor. The rules are very clear: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.html http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.h...

wglb 16y ago
Well, they are spelled out, but there is still a lot of unclarity in the execution of these rules. Enough so that some large consumers of contractors make everyone go through another consulting organization. As an example, the phrase Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job? seems a bit open to interpretation. Lets say you are a contractor working on a BFE Java or .net application. The project has its source control rules, its status reporting rules, its code convention rules, and all are likely under the control of an employee of the company in question. Sounds like the company has the right to control in this very common case. So I argue that the rules may be extensive, but they are not very clear.
starkfist 16y ago
I couldn't figure out if the guy was an employee, contractor, or founder...