The proposed revisions to the standards for Independent Contractor status were actually first proposed under the last Bush administration and have nothing to do with health care reform. The MSPA has been railing about them for more than 5 years.

Does anyone remember the source of.... "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts."

Interesting,
The Bush administration resisted the IRS requests to restrict the Independant Contractor status by requesting that congress enact a bill to define the status. Yet, when the current administration took office, they pointed to one of the formner Illinois Senator's stellar records while in Washington as having Authored and Sponsured the bill to eliminate ICs. Then once he was in office, he tried to fast track the same bill as needed to insure that everyone be required to contribut to the needed tax revenue to fund health care reform.


Go back through some news blog posts and news articles for the time periods involved. You might just see that the finger was pointed in the correct direction this time. But as all politics go, the elections are days away and the climate in DC may change and this whole issue may go on the back burner again.

As to my refrence to facts vs opinions.....I was refering to the conspiracy theory posts on what the IC Pro registration was. But I guess you have to quote everything you reply to in seperate posts. I just try to give a bit of information and my experience in one post.

The bill will not eliminate IC status. You are just buying into the MSPA's scare tactics.

One other thought has occured to me. If we are all suddenly employees, it will make the "employed" figures look better. Now we are only one IC but might end up as an employee of multiple companies. Then we would count for more.

I think the unemployment statistics are based on those registered as not having a job, rather than the number of jobs taken, since many people have more than one job.

Self employed (IC's) do not count as being unemployed, either, since we work for ourselves.

My, this lively discussion has taken on a life of its own.

I see no reason to provide the requested information to SurfMerchant via JobSlinger. They can do nothing for me that I can't do for myself. You can bet your sweet bippy their motivation is not entirely altruistic.

Mert...I'm betting my sweet "bippy" your right!!! By the way, where is my bippy....lol.

Self-employed folks That's us!) are counted as employed in the BLS statistic. Changes in the IC laws would not affect how we are counted in unemployment data.

I can see why maintaining IC status quo is so important.

Imagine if we shoppers become actual employees of the MSC's. They'd be saddled with paying one half of our Social Security taxes, a share of Medicare taxes, a share of 50 different states' unemployment benefit taxes, assorted local government taxes and fees on payroll, and I'll let the accountants out there add what else they might be liable for.

Speaking of liabilty, MSC's might run the risk of lawsuits by their new "employees'" actions. Will they be liable if a shopper goes nuts and strikes a client, has a traffic accident on the way to a shop, defames a worker who subsequently gets fired, causes injury or damage at a client location?

What if a shopper slips and falls during an evaluation, gets food poisoning at an assigned restaurant, is attacked by worker, client or customer at a location? Does the MSC pay for Workers' Compensation?

Legal experts' opinions are welcome here.

If my bank or credit union, which handles my money, has all of this information, and the ADP, which one company uses to pay, has information, and PayPal has information, then lots of companies have financial information about me. The sassies are just a small portion of the MSing business. If I get consolidated information from them, either through job posting, or even through a consolidated 1099 (which I don't think was the intent), wouldn't I be ahead? After all, it is a nuisance to take my checks to the bank to cash, withdraw my automatic deposits, drain the ADP on payday, and wait until the PayPal payments go to the bank for withdrawal. I quit using checks as a time waster. If I have to mail a bill, I either use a money order or a buy a debit card and have the company I owe money to to deduct. My bank recently started charging for ATM withdrawals, so I have to wait until it's open and see a human, who may remember details about my transactions.

This was so confusing to the agent at the public health center in deciding if I didn't make enough money to pay my full doctor's bill that they refused to take some of the records. It was so confusing to the place that made a loan to me, which deals with numbers a whole lot more than I do, that they refused to use all of the information when they made me the loan.

Everybody knows everything about me--or thinks they do. It would be a benefit to me to have all the sassie information in one place, both for assigning and for doublechecking the past.

What I am waiting for is for those who joined I C Pro to say whether it was a benefit in getting assignments and whether they encountered any suspicious situations that made them regret signing up.

SandrSue, does this mean you have signed up or you have not signed up?