TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
The logical extension of this would be to require the contractor to use
his or her own computer as well.
Unfortunately, your view of IRS and State regs, while probably quite
correct, raises an immediate conflict with the ASP crapola.
I believe it is safe to assume, too, that the rules for contractors will
only continue to tighten as the government seeks ever more income and
cast their nets wider and wider.
I also think this will continue to expand the opportunities in
telecommuting for contractors, where there is no question that they are
using their own tools from start to finish.
That said, there is also quite a conflict between the chosen software
tool set in a particular company and the same rules regarding
contractors. Theoretically, according to the IRS rules, the employer
cannot dictate the tools used by the contractor without risking being
said to be not a true contractor relationship.
The entire contractor regulations require drastic overhaul, I believe,
for they were never originally intended for software and a networked world.
If I were still in the midst of my own career rather than moldering
somewhat on the sidelines these days, I would be looking to freelance as
an off-site contract employee. (That would be especially handy as I live
these days in Ukraine!)
For those seeking to hire contractors today, I believe the smartest
method of all would be to specify the deliverable carefully enough that
the tools used to create it may be somewhat or even largely immaterial.
If, for instance, you are a DITA shop it should not matter to you how
the contractor produces the files so long as the result is fully DITA
compliant.
On the other hand, if a project requires frequent and close
collaboration by multiple authors, this may not be feasible as the most
efficient method. Often, though, there are individual documents that
would normally be assigned to one writer that could lend themselves to
such a contract arrangement quite well. The rub would come in if the
person working on that doc were to disappear for some reason before the
final output is attained.
To give but one example--we have a thread presently regarding
alternatives to Dreamweaver. I still know a surprising number of people
who hand code HTML with a programmer's text editor. Some of them I'd pit
against most Dreamweaver users in terms of quality and speed of output.
Of course, there are also still some folks who program in assembler and
sweat by it...but that is something for another day perhaps in another
venue.
David
If you bring in real contractors (1099 as opposed to a temp), the
contractors are required under IRS regs and most US states' labor laws
to provide their own tools, and if they use yours you risk being cited
for improper employment classification.
There is nothing wrong with an employer allowing employees to use
their own tools. The issue is with employers not providing employees
with required tools and expecting them to provide them at their own
expense.
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days. http://www.doctohelp.com
