"Equifax flagged 283 contractors for potential 'dual employment,' documents show." Would this not be a big flag to reclassify these contractors as employees? Being able to have multiple clients is one of the factors to determine if you're a contractor...
In the UK there's a set of criteria (IR35) that attempt to codify the distinction. The hiring business has to make the assessment. One of criteria is right to subcontract and freedom to work with multiple clients. If they get it wrong, they're liable for taxes, not the Contractor. HMRC, the UK tax body is responsible for this, and therefore it is an utter mess in practice and has had chilling effects on the UK IT con…
Of course, idea and execution are two very different things.
In NZ, it's often found in courier companies and telecommunications, where you're an owner-operator! Except you have to do what the company you work for says, when they say, and you have to provide all your own equipment, and of course, pay for your own sick leave, accident insurance and holiday pay. And no you can't work for a competitor, are you nuts?
At one point our tax department started cracking down on this, then stopped, I'm not sure why. But it needs to be done.
And let's not even discuss the infamous Hobbit law, where a right leaning government passed legislation under urgency to make all film industry employees contractors, with no rights to unionise, to keep Peter Jackson (he can get the Sir back when he redeems himself in my mind) and Warner Brothers happy after Jackson's Weta Studios lost an Employment Court case brought by a "contractor" who they very vigorously treated as an employee.