Before you can know how to treat payments you make for services, you must first know the business relationship that exists between you and the person performing the services. The person performing the services may be--

• An independent contractor.
• A common-law employee.
• A statutory employee.
• A statutory nonemployee.

This discussion explains these four categories. A later discussion, Employee or Independent Contractor? (section 2), points out the differences between an independent contractor and an employee and gives examples from various types of occupations. If an individual who works for you is not an employee under the common-law rules (see section 2), you generally do not have to withhold Federal income tax from that individual's pay. However, in some cases you may be required to withhold under backup withholding requirements on these payments. See Circular E for information on backup withholding.

Independent Contractors

People such as lawyers, contractors, subcontractors, public stenographers, and auctioneers who follow an independent trade, business, or profession in which they offer their services to the public, are generally not employees. However, whether such people are employees or independent contractors depends on the facts in each case. The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if you, the payer, have the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result.

Common-Law Employees

Under common-law rules, anyone who performs services for you is your employee if you can control what will be done and how it will be done. This is so even when you give the employee freedom of action. What matters is that you have the right to control the details of how the services are performed. For a discussion of facts that indicate whether an individual providing services is an independent contractor or employee, see Employee or Independent Contractor? (section 2).

If you have an employer-employee relationship, it makes no difference how it is labeled. The substance of the relationship, not the label, governs the worker's status. Nor does it matter whether the individual is employed full time or part time.

For employment tax purposes, no distinction is made between classes of employees. Superintendents, managers, and other supervisory personnel are all employees. An officer of a corporation is generally an employee; however, an officer who performs no services or only minor services, and neither receives nor is entitled to receive any pay, is not considered an employee. A director of a corporation is not an employee.

You generally have to withhold and pay income, social security, and Medicare taxes on wages you pay to common-law employees. However, the wages of certain employees may be exempt from one or more of these taxes. See Employees of Exempt Organizations (section 3) and Religious Exemptions (section 4).

Leased employees. Under certain circumstances, a corporation furnishing workers to various professional people and firms is the employer of those workers for employment tax purposes. For example, a professional service corporation may provide the services of secretaries, nurses, and other similarly trained workers to its subscribers.

The service corporation enters into contracts with the subscribers under which the subscribers specify the services to be provided and the fee to be paid to the service corporation for each individual furnished. The service corporation has the right to control and direct the worker's services for the subscriber, including the right to discharge or reassign the worker. The service corporation hires the workers, controls the payment of their wages, provides them with unemployment insurance and other benefits, and is the employer for employment tax purposes. For information on employee leasing as it relates to pension plan qualification requirements, see Leased employees in Pub. 560, Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Keogh Plans).

Additional information. For more information about the treatment of special types of employment, the treatment of special types of payments, and similar subjects, get Circular E or Circular A (for agricultural employers).

Statutory Employees

Four categories of workers who are independent contractors under common law are treated by statute as employees.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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's business operation. The work performed for you must be the salesperson's principal business activity. See Salesperson in section 2.

Social security and Medicare taxes. Withhold social security and Medicare taxes from the wages of statutory employees if all three of the following conditions apply.

• The service contract states or implies that substantially all the services are to be performed personally by them.
• They do not have a substantial investment in the equipment and property used to perform the services (other than an investment in transportation facilities).
• The services are performed on a continuing basis for the same payer.

Federal unemployment (FUTA) tax. For FUTA tax, the term employee means the same as it does for social security and Medicare taxes, except that it does not include statutory employees in categories 2 and 3 above. Thus, any individual who is an employee under category 1 or 4 is also an employee for FUTA tax purposes and subject to FUTA tax.

Income tax. Do not withhold income tax from the wages of statutory employees.

Reporting payments to statutory employees. Furnish a Form W-2 to a statutory employee, and check "statutory employee" in box 15 (box 13 on the 2001 Form W-2). Show your payments to the employee as other compensation in box 1. Also, show social security wages in box 3, social security tax withheld in box 4, Medicare wages in box 5, and Medicare tax withheld in box 6. The statutory employee can deduct his or her trade or business expenses from the payments shown on Form W-2. He or she reports earnings as a statutory employee on line 1 of Schedule C or C-EZ (Form 1040). (A statutory employee's business expenses are deductible on Schedule C or C-EZ (Form 1040) and are not subject to the reduction by 2% of his or her adjusted gross income that applies to common-law employees.)

Statutory Nonemployees

There are two categories of statutory nonemployees: direct sellers and licensed real estate agents. They are treated as self-employed for all Federal tax purposes, including income and employment taxes, if:

1. Substantially all payments for their services as direct sellers or real estate agents are directly related to sales or other output, rather than to the number of hours worked and
2. Their services are performed under a written contract providing that they will not be treated as employees for Federal tax purposes.

Direct sellers. Direct sellers include persons falling within any of the following three groups:

1. Persons engaged in selling (or soliciting the sale of) consumer products in the home or place of business other than in a permanent retail establishment.
2. Persons engaged in selling (or soliciting the sale of) consumer products to any buyer on a buy-sell basis, a deposit-commission basis, or any similar basis prescribed by regulations, for resale in the home or at a place of business other than in a permanent retail establishment.
3. Persons engaged in the trade or business of delivering or distributing newspapers or shopping news (including any services directly related to such delivery or distribution).

Direct selling includes activities of individuals who attempt to increase direct sales activities of their direct sellers and who earn income based on the productivity of their direct sellers. Such activities include providing motivation and encouragement; imparting skills, knowledge, or experience; and recruiting. For more information on direct sellers, see Pub. 911, Direct Sellers.

Licensed real estate agents. This category includes individuals engaged in appraisal activities for real estate sales if they earn income based on sales or other output.

Misclassification of Employees

Consequences of treating an employee as an independent contractor. If you classify an employee as an independent contractor and you have no reasonable basis for doing so, you may be held liable for employment taxes for that worker (the relief provisions, discussed below, will not apply). See Internal Revenue Code section 3509 for more information.

Relief provisions. If you have a reasonable basis for not treating a worker as an employee, you may be relieved from having to pay employment taxes for that worker. To get this relief, you must file all required Federal information returns on a basis consistent with your treatment of the worker. You (or your predecessor) must not have treated any worker holding a substantially similar position as an employee for any periods beginning after 1977.

Technical service specialists. This relief provision does not apply to a worker who provides services to another business (the client) as a technical service specialist under an arrangement between the business providing the worker, such as a technical services firm, and the client. A technical service specialist is an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

This rule does not affect the determination of whether such workers are employees under the common-law rules. The common-law rules control whether the specialist is treated as an employee or an independent contractor. However, if you directly contract with a technical service specialist to provide services for your business rather than for another business, you may still be entitled to the relief provision. See Employee or Independent Contractor? below.

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