August 2016 – Retaining Good Employee Talent

The question of whether someone who works for you is an employee (you control the details of what will be done and how it will be done) or an independent contractor (you are self-employed and provide services to other businesses) has important tax and legal consequences. If you have employees, you have liability to pay and withhold Federal income tax, social security and Medicare taxes, and Federal unemployment tax, report wages and issue statements to employees. For independent contractors, generally no withholding is required.

The IRS has recently ‘simplified’ their IRS Independent Contractor Test (down from 20 factors) to eleven main tests, organized into three main groups: behavioral control,...