Re: [Iasa20] employees and contractors in 6635bis

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 4:02 PM Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>
wrote:

>
> Hiya,
>
> On 30/04/2019 23:49, John Levine wrote:
> > In article <[e-mail]> you write:
> >> ISTM that the fixed-term with re-appointment model for
> >> the RSE role inherently means not filling that role by
> >> hiring an LLC employee.
> >>
> >> Where am I wrong in the above?
> >
> > It depends where the employee is.
>
> Yes. As I explicitly said in my mail.
>
> My point being that we don't want to constrain selection of
> an RSE based on geographic variations in employment law. For
> this role, that could be a significant constraint.
>

This seems like an argument for giving the LLC *more* latitude here,
because as this discussion has shown, there are places where it's
advantageous to have people with whom you have a long-term
engagement be a contractor and others where it's advantageous
to have them be an employee.

So, I'm not sure I follow your argument here, which seems to be that
you think we ought to constrain the LLC in this respect.


> Here in the US, if you hire a person as a contractor but the the
> > nature of the job is more like an employee (the so called IRS 20
> > questions), the person can file an SS-8 form with the IRS to ask to be
> > reclassified as an employee.  If the IRS agrees, the employer has to
> > pay unemployment and social security and medicare taxes for the
> > employee, retroactive to when they were hired.  It can be a
> > significant financial risk for the employer.
>
> Yes. But the RSE role has not been "more like an employee"
> at all.
>

Without taking a position on the nature of the RSE, I'm not sure
that you and John mean the same thing when you say "like an
employee". See, for instance:
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/understanding-employee-vs-contractor-designation

Note that the questions here are not largely about how *we* think of
the role but rather about the structure of the work and of the relationship.

-Ekr