‘Tis the season for porch pirates! The seas are perfect when you consider online shopping is outperforming in-store shopping for the first time ever and this is the most robust holiday spending season since 2014 at $682 billion. This means online retailers, like Amazon, and shipping companies are working at a (yellow?) fever pitch in order to get consumer goods to homes and offices. But unless you’ve arranged for your packages to be delivered at a time you can be are at home, those packages may be sitting on your front porch all day while you are at work and may be raided by porch pirates. For the uninitiated, “porch…
-
-
Independent Contractors vs. Employees: Classifications, Considerations, Consequences, and Cases
Whether a person is an independent contractor or an employee has important legal implications. The distinction affects the rights of the independent contractor/employer, income taxes, and the liabilities of both employer and worker. Considerations In determining the worker’s classification, courts look at the facts surrounding an employment relationship and ask the following questions:[1] Does the company control what the worker does and how they do it? How is the worker paid? Are expenses reimbursed? Who provides the tools/supplies? Are there written contracts? Are there employee benefits? Is the work performed an integral part of the business? Does the…