Dear Compliance Man:<\/p>\n
I got hired as a painter six months ago. I was happy to find work but there\u2019s always been something kind of funny about this job. My boss says that we\u2019re not employees but independent painters. Since I started, I\u2019ve worked on a couple of schools and some private stuff and I always get paid the same flat rate, no taxes taken out. Is this illegal?<\/p>\n
–Painted into a Corner<\/p>\n
Dear Painted:<\/p>\n
Thanks for writing. I understand how tough it is in this economy to come forward and question an employer when so many construction workers are out of work.<\/p>\n
Your instinct is almost certainly correct though. For years, employers have been trying to skirt state and federal wage laws by claiming that you are your own boss. In fact, a study of construction contractors in Massachusetts found that 14% of them had wrongly classified their workers as independent contractors, denying them the wages and benefits they\u2019re legally entitled to and sticking them with a major bill come tax time. Fortunately, both state and federal authorities have begun to crack down on this particular scam<\/a>.<\/p>\n The bottom line: if your boss calls the shots about where and when you work and provides you with the equipment necessary to do your job, you are NOT an independent contractor.<\/p>\n For more commonly asked Compliance Man questions, visit the\u00a0Compliance Man archives<\/a>. Send your question to\u00a0info@ffcm.org<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Compliance Man: I got hired as a painter six months ago. I was happy to find work but there\u2019s always been something kind of funny about this job. My boss says that we\u2019re not employees but independent painters. Since I started, I\u2019ve worked on a couple of schools and some private stuff and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[35,46,47,30],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compliance-man","tag-contractor","tag-fraud","tag-taxes","tag-wages","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1472,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions\/1472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}