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FYI my previous post on this issue, eWork (http://www.ework.com) charges 12%
of revenue to provide 1099 payroll service for independents. Believe me, at
$50 an hour, this fee more than covers the lost billing hours if you do all
of this yourself.
They will also provide W2 (employer-of-record) services where you are paid
an hourly rate and they pick up the employer side of taxes, offer benefits,
and so on. But as someone mentioned, you can get decent group rates on
health insurance from a variety of organizations.
I disagree about getting liability/umbrella insurance. I would hate to lose
my house because I am "certain" no client would ever sue me. It is a small
price to pay for the certainly I would be covered.
-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-67915 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-67915 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of Berk/Devlin
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 3:36 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Contracting and Temp Agencies
Hi Tommy!
You have just stumbled across one of those dirty little secrets of
freelance writing. Truth is, IMHO, the odds of you or your client being
sued because of something you wrote are infinitesimal. And, the odds of a
jury of your peers actually holding you personally liable -- NILL.
However, the odds of YOU wanting to sue your potential client because they
just happen to fail to pay you for the last XXX hours of your work -- I'd
put THAT at 50%. And, the odds of them worrying that the IRS will get
upset with them for employing you 100% of the time but count you as a
contractor -- 99 44/100%. (Which is why I am incorporated, but that's a
whole other story.)
Which is why, I believe, many of these companies go through what they call
"approved providers". You end up in a 3rd party contract (that is, you
sign a contract with the approved provider and the approved provider signs
the contract with your actual employer). You get paid slower (because your
employer pays the approved provider and the approved provider won't pay you
until the check clears). You have less recourse if your client doesn't
pay, and you have to sit and stew if your client or your approved provider
doesn't pay promptly -- which WILL happen at some time in the life of any
relatively long contract.
On the other hand, there are quite a number of very big employers of tech
writers who work this way and only this way. And I've enjoyed working on
quite a few of these projects. (Until that last, extremely large, check --
which did not arrive for months and months and months and months. But it
did ALWAYS arrive eventually, sometimes after legal intervention...)
NWU offers liability insurance, which ought to cover you in this
regard. But when I've told some of these clients I was going to purchase
it, and could we then go direct? -- they routinely have upped the coverage
amount required. Because there are many advantages to THEM to forcing you
to go the approved provider route.
So, I say -- if you want/need the job, sign with one of the approved
providers on their list. You'll get the hourly amount you wanted and they
will add their percentage on the top. Might want to get a retainer for the
last several weeks up front, though.
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