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I wouldn't be so quick to call the tax/employment-regulation authorities villainous. The reason these regulations exist is to prevent employers from treating pe
by stanleydrew 8y ago
I wouldn't be so quick to call the tax/employment-regulation authorities villainous. The reason these regulations exist is to prevent employers from treating people who "should be" employees as contractors where they get fewer benefits.
The regulatory environment isn't set up to handle a situation where an employee would rather be a contractor, because that's relatively rare.
Ideally there would be some way to take the worker's preference into account, but things just aren't set up that way and so the assumption is that contractors need to be protected from employers who want to screw them.
In any individual case an employer could probably document an employee preference for a certain classification and be fine. But UpWork and state employment regulatory bodies are built for handling scale, so processes will tend towards working for the most common situations.
- candiodari 8y agoSo you mean to say the tax authorities do this unintentionally ? Is that supposed to be better, or worse ? They're some combination of incompetence and malevolence. I feel like incompetence is worse.
- stanleydrew 8y agoThat's not what I said at all. They are intentionally trying to prevent employers from abusing employees by forcing them into contracting arrangements with fewer benefits.
- candiodari 8y agoTrying one thing, not achieving that one, but achieving another bad thing in the process. How is that not failing ? Upwork has been in the news more than enough to make it VERY clear that if there's any kind of organisation that needs to be prevented from exploiting others, it's Upwork.
- milch 8y agoMaking it possible for the worker to document their “preference” would defeat the entire purpose of these regulations. Companies would simply fire anyone who doesn’t have a contractor preference
- stickfigure 8y agoSo instead we're ram-roding everyone into the wage-slavery model. With health insurance linked to your employer, it's no wonder people are afraid to leave their cubicles. I think "big evil corporations" like this setup just fine.
- geezerjay 8y ago> So instead we're ram-roding everyone into the wage-slavery model. Companies like upwork do absolutely nothing to solve that problem. In fact, they make it even worse by not even considering the idea of offering any healthcare service to any if their "contractors".
- stickfigure 8y agoThat's so naive that it makes me angry. Companies like upwork provide a place for independents to find clients. I spent the last 10 years earning most of of my income from consulting. The hard problem is not getting health insurance (you can buy it, it's just expensive and paid with after-tax dollars). THE hard part about being a consultant is finding people to pay you. These marketplaces might not be perfect, but they're a step in the right direction. I want exactly one thing from them - the ability to find work and get paid.
- beatgammit 8y agoAs a salaried employee, I hated the benefits my company provided, but it was worse to go without because I'm ineligible if I turn it down. Since leaving my company and consulting full-time instead, I: - pay less for insurance - after my subsidy, I pay less than my portion as a W-2 employee for nearly equivalent coverage - pay less for funds in my solo-401k without any other fees - don't get a FICA deduction for my HSA contribution (not sure why you have to be a W-2 employee for that deduction) - make more, even after additional FICA taxes I was already an "at-will" employee, so I didn't get much more protection anyway, so leaving my company and working as a 1099 was a net win with pretty much zero downsides. I really don't understand why the IRS is so adamant about making people W-2 employees, it's quite often a worse situation.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]