[ALE-jobs] Linux System Administrator

[Chris Fowler]

I know about the issue of not paying unemployment.  My company has been 
bitten by someone we paid as 1099 filing for unemployment.  It did not 
matter he had signed an agreement.  The state said that because he used 
our equipment and we dictated his hours he was an employee.  This issue 
cost us a pile of cash.   We had to pay his unemployment and the 
premiums we would have paid during his employment had he been a W-2.

The rules in the link can be considered subjective, but all that matters 
is what the DOL rules.   The part that is a red flag here is the on call 
piece.  That is more of a role on an employee.

The IRS will generally follow this:

"The answer here is as simple as two little words. A Duck. If it walks 
like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. In other words, if the 
position requires the employee to be directed as to how, when, where and 
with what to do the job, then get quacking… he is a W2 employee. If 
however, the job will be done independently, then a 1099 may be the way 
to go."

Another one:

"Here’s the dirt…. If you have a worker and that worker only works for 
you at your premises 100% of the time and uses all your equipment and 
you dictate how he does the work in the office he is considered a 
Employee and must receive a W-2.

If that workers works for you more than occasionally and also works for 
other companies and you don’t dictate when he comes and goes he is can 
receive a 1099. That is the condensed version."


That is what got us.