Independent Contractors

Author: Michael Cardman, XpertHR Legal Editor

Employers that care more about an end result than how it is achieved can avoid certain taxes, legal liabilities and administrative challenges by hiring independent contractors instead of employees.

The risks of incorrectly classifying a worker as an independent contractor instead of an employee, though, have never been higher. The Obama administration is seeking additional funding to ramp up its already-robust efforts to enforce wage and hour laws. At the same time, 15 states have partnered with the federal government to coordinate investigations, make referrals to one another, share data and take other actions to combat worker misclassification. New laws have been passed in Illinois and New York to tighten classification standards and/or increase the penalties for misclassification, and similar legislation has been introduced in legislatures across the nation.

XpertHR offers the following Tools and resources to help an employer hire and manage independent contractor, and to deal with the fallout in the event of a misclassification.