Independent Contractor Compliance Blog

There is nothing inherently wrong with out-of-state staffing companies wanting to do business in California.  Yet problems often arise if they fail to understand California’s strict independent contractor (IC) classification rules and environment.  Most other states have lenient rules to establish independent contractors compared to California.  Oftentimes staffing companies establish a successful system for IC [...]

Governor Brown recently signed Senate Bill 459 into law making it illegal to willfully misclassify employees as independent contractors.  The law provides authority to the California’s Labor Workforce Development Agency to assess civil penalties and take action against a person or employer violating the new law. This law allows California’s Labor Commissioner to levy a [...]

It is very common for a company to engage qualified independent contractors (ICs) who: Are true experts Have other clients Market their services to gain new clients Work for a fixed price for a completed job Pay their own expenses Work for several clients (sometimes even competitors) at the same time However, many times these [...]

The American Dream is founded on the belief that an individual can build a business with determination and hard work, starting with nothing except an idea or a skill.  Being your own boss — an independent contractor — is at the heart of this dream. Successful independent contractors eventually grow their small business into a [...]

An auditor looking over your books and records will look for familiar patterns for businesses that misclassify workers.  For example, an individual receiving a check charged to “contract labor” or “outside services” every two weeks for months on end is a red flag of a possible salary paid to a misclassified worker. An auditor may [...]

According to The Wall Street Journal, (“The Rise of the Temp Lawyer”, June 15, 2011), a new trend in labor law suits has sprung up from an unlikely source: “itinerant contract attorneys.”  These are typically recent graduates, who move from job-to-job, getting paid by the hour, largely to review documents for law firms and corporate [...]

According to current U.S. Census Bureau figures: 76 million persons were born in the “baby boom” years, from 1946 through 1964. In 2008, they began to reach age 62-retirement age for Social Security. In 2009, over 2.7 million people were added to the Social Security benefit roles. In 2012, it is anticipated that 10,000 more [...]

Last year I wrote in the article Classic Misclassified Worker Scenario about a conversation with my neighbor’s daughter, who recently graduated from college and accepted a position as a freelance, independent contractor (IC) software engineer. I won’t mention the company’s name. Last year she was excited about her booming career. She’d anticipated the IC position [...]

There are powerful economical, legal and political forces struggling to decide how prominent the use of independent contractors will be in the United States. The catalysts for this emerging battle are a sluggish world economy, increased international competition, and demographic shifts which are driving a talent shortage. Both sides are becoming more aggressive in the [...]

I hope you don’t hold it against me, but in a previous life I was a tax auditor for the government. As a rank and file auditor I performed approximately 800 audits before becoming a supervisor, then a district administrator and on up the line…From that experience I can tell you firsthand that auditors look [...]