Hiring Independent Contractors: The Employer's Legal Guide (Working With Independent Contractors) [Paperback]

Stephen Fishman (Author), Amy Delpo (Author)

Book Description

Series: Working With Independent Contractors | Publication Date: June 2003

Using independent contractors can save you a bundle -- but the rules about who qualifies are complicated, and misclassifying a worker can result in serious financial penalties in a state or federal audit.

If you hire programmers, writers, designers, marketing consultants, nurses, janitors, telemarketers, drivers or anyone else on a contractual basis, you need Hiring Independent Contractors.  This book shows you how to:

*assess who qualifies as an independent contractor
*hire ICs without risking an audit
*retain ownership of intellectual property when using ICs
*handle an IRS audit
*take advantage of the IRS's "Safe Harbor" law

The 4th edition is completely revised to reflect the latest laws and court rulings. It also features an entirely new chapter that takes you through a four-step process to classify workers for federal tax purposes. The book comes with all the contracts you'll need, as tear-outs and on CD-ROM.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Comprehensive, current and savvy, this is highly recommended... -- Library Journal

This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date information on the subject anywhere. -- Barnard Kamoroff, CPA, author of Small Time Operator

About the Author

Stephen Fishman received his law degree from the University of Southern California in 1979. After stints in government and private practice, he became a full-time legal writer in 1983. He has helped write and edit over a dozen reference books for attorneys. He is the author of Software Development: A Legal Guide, Copyright Your Software, The Copyright Handbook, Consultant & Independent Contractor Agreements, Wage Slave No More: Law & Taxes for the Self-Employed, and Hiring Independent Contractors: The Employer's Legal Guide, all published by Nolo.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Nolo; 4th edition (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873379187
• ISBN-13: 978-0873379182
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,466,269 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The details on the topic of independent contractors., August 14, 2003

By 

Harinath Thummalapalli (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hiring Independent Contractors: The Employers' Legal Guide (Working with Independent Contractors: The Employer's Legal Guide) (Paperback)

You will find a general treatment of the topic of Independent Contractors (IC) in other Nolo guides but if you want a definitive and detailed guide, this is the book for you. All the way from templates of general independent contractor forms on CD-ROM to a thorough analysis of the various aspects of working with Independent Contractors, this book does a great job of discussing in plain English what every Small Business Owner needs to know. There is another Nolo guide on just the different contracts you could use for this purpose but this book contains most of those types of forms.

The book starts out with an introductory definition of an Independent Contractor and explains the benefits and risks of hiring one. The next natural step for every employer is to go through the process of determining the worker status and federal payroll taxes. After discussing this topic, the book explains the Safe Harbor Protection which is the process an IRS auditor is supposed to follow in determining if your classification of Independent Contractors should be questioned (something along these lines).

There are 3 chapters devoted to IRS specific topics - IRS Audits, tax rules for specific workers, and the IRS test for worker status. State payroll taxes, Workers' Compensation, hiring household workers, and labor/anti-discrimination laws are addressed after that.

The book then discusses the topic of Intellectual Property ownership in this context of Independent Contractors. This is followed by a few chapters on sample IC agreements, procedures for hiring ICs, how to avoid government audits etc. My favorite chapter is the Chapter 13: Intellectual Property Ownership as this can get very tricky if you aren't careful. In my business, this also happens to be one of the biggest risks in hiring ICs for our work instead of employees.

Overall, this is an excellent book that explains in plain English (as Nolo always does) of the intricacies involved in working with ICs. Of course, as some large corporations in the computer industry found out, it isn't that straight forward. So this book only helps you do some of the right things and avoid the obvious problems but there is no substitute for a good lawyer who can handle the more difficult issues.

Good luck!