Q: Company makes us file as independent contractor but we’re employees. Is there an anonymous way to report them?
We’ve researched definitions of what makes an employee. We know they’re not in stone but we feel they meet enough we should be employees. It’s for a Trivia game nationwide company & we host trivia games at bars. So: they tell us when & where to work. They supply the items needed to host a game. They train us on how to perform the job, we are essential to their business in that if we don’t show up their business doesn’t “open.” I’ve worked for them 4 years w/no end in site. We’re paid by the hour & get checks every other week. We don’t profit or lose if the business does poorly & we are so specifically told how to do the job we must follow an exact script & they make us sign a “non compete” form which in Okla doesn’t mean much but if I was an independent repairman a business couldn’t say you can’t repair anything for anybody but us unless he’s an employee. They don’t allow us to host other game nights on our own. Is there an ANONYMOUS way to report them? This is nationwide tax fraud
A:
Welcome to the murky waters of employee vs. independent contractor.
Part of the problem is that you have several agencies - both federal and state - with overlapping jurisdiction.
In Oklahoma, you have the IRS, the OTC and the OESC just to name a few.
Not only that, but a decision by the IRS is not binding on the OTC and OESC, and vice versa. In other words, there is not a central agency that gets to make the decision, and make the decision binding on everyone else.
As far as I know, each of the agencies involved has a resource for anonymous reports - but you would have to contact each of the agencies individually.
Basically, many companies treat such persons as independent contractors until it gets to be too expensive or too much of a hassle.
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