1099/independent contractor in NY/NYC

[Guest tommymac]

I have been working a PT job under 1099 for about a year and a half now. Now we are hearing that we may not be able to work as an independent contractor since were not technically independent practicioners. I have worked as a 1099 at a few other jobs before this as has our chief PA.

 

Does anyone know for certain if we can or cannot work under a 1099 in the NYC area?

 

thanx

 

Tom M

[rcdavis]

It depends how your medical management team decides to carry you, and interpret the "incident to" rule.

 

This arguement (dependent practitioners cannot be independent contractors) waxes and wanes about every 5 years.

 

Currently, many companies which use PAs as IC, are getting around the discussion by asking the PAs to set up either LLC or PLC and are paying the LLC (in my case "Davis Emergency Consultants, LLC") directly, and letting the LLC pay me.

 

The IRS has problems w/ independent contractors on all levels unless they truely are setting their own hours, can come and go as they please, etc. This of course is not the case in emergency medicine, where we are obligated to stay the whole shift, cannot leave when we want, etc.

 

The sole advantage to IC, at least as I see it) is a MUCH LARGER set aside amount for your retiremnet in the form of a SelfEmploymentPension (SEP), than is available to you in your roth IRA as an employee.

 

However, you get much better bennies as an employee, PLUS do not have to foot the full 15.8% SSI on the first 108k that you make, (an employee has to pay 1/2 of that tax while the employer pays the other 1/2).

 

Though I donot know about NY or NYC, I hope this helps

 

davis

[foley08]

I found this older thread when searching for information on independent contractor positions. I am about to start an ED job (my first woo!) and the ED is staffed by an outside company, so the PAs and docs are not hospital employees but rather independent contractors of this outside company.

 

I've just been trying to educate myself on the financial/tax side of this and it seems that in the ED setting there are many benefits to the company and few for the independent contractor. Is this a common set-up in EDs? Is there any benefit to setting up an LLC?

 

In doing some internet research it seems that the IRS does indeed have problems with people being incorrectly labeled as ICs but this is a pretty big company and I assume they have tax lawyers etc. I'm just curious as to how they get away with claiming we are ICs?