This tax season brings up some interesting employment issues, especially in relation to health care laws.  A New York Times article this week examined the topic in depth, highlighting the fact that this year the IRS is emphasizing the distinction between employees and self-employed independent contractors, making it important for workers and critical for businesses that use their services to make sure to get the classification right in order to avoid costly mistakes.

If a company has 49 full-time employees, the employer mandate doesn’t apply, but with 50 or more, it applies to everyone. If the IRS finds that enough workers at a company are employees, not contractors, stiff penalties can be applied.  Therefore it’s crucial for business owners to make sure that workers are given the right status.

As an employee, if you would prefer to be considered a contractor by the IRS when a company engages your services, a contract designating you as that not help, but a clause entitling you to work for other businesses would be useful – indicating that you have more then one customer.

You can read the full article here – http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/business/yourtaxes/employee-or-contractor-health-care-law-raises-stakes.html?_r=0.