{"id":329,"date":"2009-02-06T07:59:52","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T12:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/?p=329"},"modified":"2009-02-06T07:59:52","modified_gmt":"2009-02-06T12:59:52","slug":"question-of-the-week-can-you-tell-me-more-about-statutory-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/2009\/02\/question-of-the-week-can-you-tell-me-more-about-statutory-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Question of the Week: Can You Tell Me More about Statutory Employees?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 6pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">This week\u2019s question comes from Carolyn, a business owner. I read recently about statutory employees and would like to find out if some of our new hires would qualify as statutory employees. Can you tell me more about statutory employees? Answer: Common law considers some workers employees and some independent contractors. By statute, some independent contractors are treated as employees for employment tax purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">There are four categories of independent contractors that might be statutory employees:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">A driver who distributes beverages (other than milk) or meat, vegetable, fruit, or bakery products; or who picks up and delivers laundry or dry cleaning, if the driver is your agent or is paid on commission.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">A full-time life insurance sales agent whose principal business activity is selling life insurance or annuity contracts, or both, primarily for one life insurance company.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">An individual who works at home on materials or goods that you supply and that must be returned to you or to a person you name, if you also furnish specifications for the work to be done.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">A full-time traveling or city salesperson who works on your behalf and turns in orders to you from wholesalers, retailers, contractors, or operators of hotels, restaurants, or other similar establishments. The goods sold must be merchandise for resale or supplies for use in the buyer\u2019s business operation. The work performed for you must be the salesperson\u2019s principal business activity.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 6pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">If the independent contractor must perform the services personally as an explicit or implicit clause of the service contract, if the independent contractor does not have a substantial investment in the non-transportation facilities property and equipment, <strong style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;\">and<\/strong> the services are performed for the same payer on a continuing basis, then the payer must withhold social security and Medicare tax from payments to contractors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 6pt; tab-stops: 284.25pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">For workers in categories 1 and 4 above who have payments subject to social security and Medicare tax under these rules, the payments are also considered wages for federal unemployment (FUTA) purposes. Payments to workers in categories 2 and 3 above are never considered wages for FUTA purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 6pt; tab-stops: 284.25pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">Payments to statutory employees are never subject to federal income tax withholding.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 6pt; tab-stops: 284.25pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">Report payments to statutory employees on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/fw2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Form W-2<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/2008\/12\/2008-form-w-2-tips-part-2-box-1-wages-tips-other-compensation\/\" target=\"_blank\">box 1<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/2009\/01\/2008-form-w-2-tips-part-4-box-3-social-security-wages\/\" target=\"_blank\">box 3<\/a> (to the wage limit), and <a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/2009\/01\/2008-form-w-2-tips,-part-6,-box-5-medicare-wages-and-tips\/\" target=\"_blank\">box 5<\/a>. Be sure to check the <a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/2009\/01\/2008-form-w-2-tips-part-14-box-13-checkboxes\/\" target=\"_blank\">box 13<\/a>\u00a0\u201cStatutory employee\u201d checkbox on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/fw2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Form W-2<\/a>. Statutory employees report the amount from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/fw2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Form W-2<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/2008\/12\/2008-form-w-2-tips-part-2-box-1-wages-tips-other-compensation\/\" target=\"_blank\">box 1<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/f1040.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Form 1040<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/f1040sc.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Schedule C<\/a>, line 1 and complete the checkbox on that line. They may also deduct related business expenses on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/f1040sc.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Schedule C<\/a>, to the extent allowable by law.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 284.25pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: \">Contact <a href=\"mailto:info@visionpayroll.com\" target=\"_blank\">Vision Payroll<\/a> if you have any questions on statutory employees.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week\u2019s question comes from Carolyn, a business owner. I read recently about statutory employees and would like to find out if some of our new hires would qualify as statutory employees. Can you tell me more about statutory employees? Answer: Common law considers some workers employees and some independent contractors. By statute, some independent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[634,746,665,692,661,74,50,177,44,178,747],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6653,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions\/6653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}