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posted by martyb on Friday November 15 2019, @09:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the get-to-refile-four-years-of-state-and-federal-taxes,-too dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

New Jersey is the latest state to say Uber's drivers should be classified as employees rather than independent contractors. The state's labor department said that because of this misclassification, the ride-hailing company owes it roughly $650 million in unemployment taxes and disability insurance, according to Bloomberg Law.

The labor department reportedly has been trying to get unpaid employment taxes from Uber going back as far as 2015, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg Law. It said the company owed the state $523 million in overdue taxes along with another $119 million in interest and penalties for the last four years. Uber disputes these findings.

"We are challenging this preliminary but incorrect determination," an Uber spokesman said in an email. "Because drivers are independent contractors in New Jersey and elsewhere."

Driver classification is an issue that government regulators have been taking a closer look at over the past year. California passed a law in September that could require Uber and other on-demand companies to reclassify their drivers as employees instead of independent contractors. The law is set to go into effect Jan. 1. New York, Oregon and Washington state have considered similar legislation.


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  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday November 16 2019, @11:11PM (1 child)

    by edIII (791) on Saturday November 16 2019, @11:11PM (#921102)

    1) Does the "contractor" get the majority of their pay from a single payer, year after year? If so, that's not a contractor.

    As long as you restrict that to the end user, or customer. Uber, when operating correctly, isn't a payer, but an intermediary between customer and contractor. No different than Stripe, Freshbooks, Quickbooks, any many other online platforms that handle customer interactions and payments. You wouldn't claim that somebody that accepted AMEX only is in fact an AMEX employee right?

    Which brings up another issue, there is also Lyft involved in this discussion. It's not any real difference to me if a allegedly independent contractor is being hosed by both Uber and Lyft at the same time. Many people have two jobs, so that test doesn't catch that.

    The test needs to concentrate on the levels of control over the transaction, who gets authority over invoicing, setting the price, .etc. I've been in the situation as an independent contractor where I had only one big client left, and I sure as heck didn't feel like an employee to them, nor did they see that relationship either (not that they knew how many clients I had). Especially since I set the price of my contract and they agreed.

    Not all independent contractors are being abused. Uber if operating correctly would actually be a pretty neat vendor for an independent driver to have.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 16 2019, @11:36PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday November 16 2019, @11:36PM (#921114)

    who gets authority over invoicing, setting the price, .etc

    Very good points, and clearly distinctive - if you are representing products from a catalog, taking a fixed commission (as my wife did for several years), calling her an "independent consultant" is just insulting.

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