As 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 comp

As 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.