California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees • Hacker News Board

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#311

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

Multiplayer wrote: post #299

jeffasinger wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also not an accountant or lawyer, but I think that if you're paying someone by the hour, and directing them as to how they should do they job, they need to be classified as an employee, not a contractor. This means a W2 instead of a 1099, plus you need to pay them on a fixed schedule, pay social security and medicare taxes (and likely other taxes depending on jurisdiction) on their wages, deduct income taxes, do an I…

We had some employees in NYC earlier this year. They make California employment laws look simple in comparison. Definitely, Definitely get a service there that knows how to handle all of the fine details.

https://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/doingbus/hire.htm

NY posts all of the requirements for hiring a new employee on a single page. It's a simple process, and even simpler if you use a payroll service provider.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#312

Post by kmjg88nvf8 » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

davidgh wrote: post #133

kmjg88nvf8 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't anybody do a startup providing health insurance to the uninsured? Are there too many regulations? Insurance is just a business, it seems to me.

The USA did such a startup. It’s called healthcare.gov, AKA Obamacare. It allows you to get health insurance, without consideration for pre-existing conditions and provides you with significant tax credits to offset the premiums, based on your income. Most of the policies are high-deductible, which means you’ll end up paying for the “scratches and sniffles” yourself but have a per-year maximum-out-of-pocket that can…

Maybe it is wrong to ask insurances to insure people with pre-existing conditions. Perhaps such cases should be considered charity or social help, and convered by the state? Just wondering if reframing the problem as such could help. I'm not from the US, so not sure what exactly the issues are.

It seems healthcare.gov is not good enough yet? I don't think classifying government institutions as startups is really correct, though. They have infinite money supply and no requirement to be profitable.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

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Post by cloverich » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

jeffasinger wrote: post #268

nickjj wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m in NYC and honestly can’t figure out how to legally hire a studio assistant for a few hours a week without being at risk for any of a number of lawsuit vectors. To my understanding (not a lawyer / accountant) if you hire someone part time like that you're not obligated to pay for their insurance or anything like that. You just write off what you paid them as a business expense and send them a 1099 at the end of…

Also not an accountant or lawyer, but I think that if you're paying someone by the hour, and directing them as to how they should do they job, they need to be classified as an employee, not a contractor. This means a W2 instead of a 1099, plus you need to pay them on a fixed schedule, pay social security and medicare taxes (and likely other taxes depending on jurisdiction) on their wages, deduct income taxes, do an I…

Don't forget a W4 form!

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#314

Post by PorterDuff » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

sk5t wrote: post #275

jeffasinger wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also not an accountant or lawyer, but I think that if you're paying someone by the hour, and directing them as to how they should do they job, they need to be classified as an employee, not a contractor. This means a W2 instead of a 1099, plus you need to pay them on a fixed schedule, pay social security and medicare taxes (and likely other taxes depending on jurisdiction) on their wages, deduct income taxes, do an I…

> and directing them as to how they should do they job This is, to me, a very puzzling take. If you hire a contractor, you don't direct how they do the job, only what the job output is like. Hourly contractors are certainly a thing.

I'm still confused how you can avoid tell someone how to do their job. A SW contractor can't be told which language to use or be connected to company source control or use existing company software libraries? A carpenter can't be directed in some fashion beyond: 'YOU, GO BUILD HOUSE FRAME'.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#315

Post by nickjj » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

einarvollset wrote: post #303

nickjj wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also not an accountant or lawyer, but I think that if you're paying someone by the hour, and directing them as to how they should do they job, they need to be classified as an employee, not a contractor. > This means a W2 instead of a 1099 [...] I'm a freelance developer in NY and this isn't the case. When someone requests me to do work for them they tell me what they want done, we scope out the project and then I…

It will probably come as a surprise to you (it did me several years ago), that it’s not simply up to you and the company hiring you if you are considered a freelancer. This is not a matter of billable vs guaranteed hours. It’s a classification based on employee control over the person in question. In fact, if you were micro directing the people you paid 1099, you may have had what the state of NY would consider an em…

> It will probably come as a surprise to you (it did me several years ago), that it’s not simply up to you and the company hiring you if you are considered a freelancer.

Where do you draw the line?

Let's say you hire someone for 3 hours to help you out for a specific task. A "I would like X done with Y" type of scenario. Are they now considered an employee?

What if you asked someone to do a code review for 5 hours where you precisely told them what to do, but it's on them to determine the state of the code? Also an employee? Does your answer change if you asked them to do this 1 hour a week for a year?

Here's another example. A company hired me to do X. This ended up being a ~100 hour project. They gave me a checklist of deliverables and a pretty decent break down on how to implement everything. They let me choose the tech (but had suggestions on what to use) and how the application functioned was defined by them. Am I an employee and if so, what if I worked 20 hours a week until it was done vs 50 hours a week -- does that change anything?

Scenarios like the above are really common in the freelance world. You get a super wide range of work thrown at you (as you know).

I've talked with a number of accountants over the years and always told them everything I've been up to. I was never once recommended to classify myself as a W2 employee, or be on the hook for hiring a W2 employee for short term contract work that I provided someone. It's always been 1099s in and 1099s out.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#316

Post by kmjg88nvf8 » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

uasm wrote: post #166

romanovcode wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is not Taxi. OP point is still correct. Taxi companies are coming back but Uber drivers get fired.

> "Uber is not Taxi. OP point is still correct. Taxi companies are coming back but Uber drivers get fired" They can't be "fired", since they were never properly hired in the first place! They were never regarded as employees. That's exactly what this legislation is setting out to change!

It doesn't matter how you call it - they will be unable to earn extra money by driving, that is the issue. If they relied on that money to make ends meet, they may not be happy anymore.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#317

Post by buildzr » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

dustinmoris wrote: post #291

neltnerb wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, other than the minor hassle that they need to know how to issue a W2 and get enrolled for workers comp insurance and pay their estimated taxes for them. None are super hard, but they are barriers for people who aren't used to hiring people, which is the case for I think a lot of self-employed people. I only finally bothered to learn how to do it all last year when I needed some extra help with projects for my c…

> So either it's expensive to hire a CFO just for that, or expensive in your time to learn it all when your main goal is to actually get work done that produces revenue. This attitute is exactly why those laws are needed. As a business owner if you want to hire some other human being to work for your company then it should be your natural instinct that wants you to learn everything that makes the life of that other h…

And that attitude is the reason we have so much overhead and useless garbage being produced instead of valuable labor. Just because I don't want to learn the intricacies of labor and tax law doesn't mean I won't pay my employees well and do right by them.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#318

Post by perseusprime11 » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:35 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #267

perseusprime11 wrote: post #199

What if I don't want to be an employee?

Can you talk more about why someone wouldn't want it?

I want to be an independent contractor without getting tied to a company. At least, this was the best part for me in the gig economy where I can drive Uber and rent on Airbnb and make money doing multiple gigs. I don't want to be an employee of either Uber or AirBnb.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#319

Post by PorterDuff » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #294

nickjj wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also not an accountant or lawyer, but I think that if you're paying someone by the hour, and directing them as to how they should do they job, they need to be classified as an employee, not a contractor. > This means a W2 instead of a 1099 [...] I'm a freelance developer in NY and this isn't the case. When someone requests me to do work for them they tell me what they want done, we scope out the project and then I…

The difference is that the company that contracted you isn't managing your day-to-day work. Company hires you and says "we need a website that does X" and leaves you to do it. You might be a contractor/free-lancer. Company hires you and says "we need a website that does X, you need to work in the office and/or use our hardware, and we want it written in React, and you'll be working closely with JimBob the Manager." Y…

"Yes, there's some grey area in there."

From my experience, I've never seen a software contractor that could avoid being considered an employee if the eyes of the state government fell upon them closely.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#320

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #14

If this actually gets enforced, I predict we'll all be talking about the law of unintended consequences in a year's time.

One thing that I find disappointing in this legislation is that I wish it did essentially the reverse: instead of forcing the drivers to be employees, I wish it loosened the control Uber/Lyft had to bring it down to the level of what should be expected for independent contractors.

The biggest issue for me is pricing - the fact that drivers have 0 input to rates always made the IC designation fiction. But if the apps worked eventually like a reverse auction, where drivers got to set their own rates and you could then choose based on distance and cost, that would be much more of a true marketplace model with independent sellers.