Despite major reductions in budget since 2010, the IRS has
remained vocal about stepping up enforcement actions against
employers whose employees are misclassified as independent
contractors. The IRS is about to get a significantly expanded
workforce to back up these proclamations. In particular, the IRS
Commissioner recently announced that the agency is adding between
600 and 700 new employees in its enforcement area. The new
enforcement positions will be located around the country, both in
the IRS small business/self-employed division and large business
and international division.
It is no secret that over the last several years the IRS has
been taking a variety of steps to recover what it estimates are
billions of dollars in lost tax revenue due to the
misclassification of independent contractors. For example, in early
2014, the IRS promoted a program that allows individual workers to
file a Form SS-8 to initiate a review of their independent
contractor status if
