Independent Contractor Challenges Aren't Going Away

For at least three years now, the U.S. Labor Department and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (along with a host of analogous state and local agencies) have been on the alert for instances in which workers are erroneously considered to be independent contractors rather than employees.  The popular euphemism for these situations is "misclassification" (although this term is also used to describe the different problem of incorrectly treating employees as being exempt from minimum-wage and/or overtime requirements).

What's The Big Deal?

In significant part, this increased attention began with a straightforward motivation:  Government revenue collections have steadily declined in the sluggish economy, so officials at all levels are keenly interested in plugging any leaks.  As USDOL recently put it in a press release, "misclassification generates substantial losses to the U.S. Treasury and the Social Security and Medicare funds, as well as to state