People such as lawyers, contractors, subcontractors, 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 person for whom the services are performed, have the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result.

Under common-law rules, anyone who performs services for you is your employee if you have the right to 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 with respect to services performed as a director.

You generally have to withhold and pay income, social security, and Medicare taxes on wages that 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).

If workers are independent contractors under the common law rules, such workers may nevertheless be treated as employees by statute (“statutory employees”) for certain employment tax purposes if they fall within any one of the following four categories and meet the three conditions described under Social security and Medicare taxes, below.

There are three categories of statutory nonemployees: direct sellers, licensed real estate agents, and certain companion sitters. Direct sellers and licensed real estate agents are treated as self-employed for all federal tax purposes, including income and employment taxes, if:

To determine whether an individual is an employee or an independent contractor under the common law, the relationship of the worker and the business must be examined. In any employee-independent contractor determination, all information that provides evidence of the degree of control and the degree of independence must be considered.

Facts that provide evidence of the degree of control and independence fall into three categories: behavioral control, financial control, and the type of relationship of the parties. These facts are discussed below.

The following examples may help you properly classify your workers:

If an employee is given a temporary work assignment away from his or her regular place of work, certain travel expenses reimbursed or paid directly by the employer in accordance with an accountable plan (see section 5 in Publication 15 (Circular E)) may be excludable from the employee's wages. Generally, a temporary work assignment in a single location is one that is realistically expected to last (and does in fact last) for 1 year or less. If the employee's new work assignment is indefinite, any living expenses reimbursed or paid by the employer (other than qualified moving expenses) must be included in the employee's wages as compensation. For the travel expenses to be excludable:

If you reimburse or pay any personal expenses of an employee during his or her temporary work assignment, such as expenses for home leave for family members or for vacations, these amounts must be included in the employee's wages. See chapter 1 of Publication 463, Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses, and section 5 of Publication 15 (Circular E), for more information. These rules generally apply to temporary work assignments both inside and outside the U.S.

Do not withhold federal income, social security, or Medicare taxes on the fair market value of an employee achievement award if it is excludable from your employee's gross income. To be excludable from your employee's gross income, the award must be tangible personal property (not cash, gift certificates, or securities) given to an employee for length of service or safety achievement, awarded as part of a meaningful presentation, and awarded under circumstances that do not indicate that the payment is disguised compensation. Excludable employee achievement awards also are not subject to FUTA tax.

Only amounts that you pay as a qualified scholarship to a candidate for a degree may be excluded from the recipient's gross income. A qualified scholarship is any amount granted as a scholarship or fellowship that is used for:

The exclusion from income does not apply to the portion of any amount received that represents payment for teaching, research, or other services required as a condition of receiving the scholarship or tuition reduction. These amounts are reportable on Form W-2. However, the exclusion will still apply for any amount received under two specific programs—the National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program and the Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship and Financial Assistance Program—despite any service condition attached to those amounts.

Any amounts that you pay for room and board are not excludable from the recipient's gross income. A qualified scholarship is not subject to social security, Medicare, and FUTA taxes, or federal income tax withholding. For more information, see Publication 970, Tax Benefits for Education.

If you provide outplacement services to your employees to help them find new employment (such as career counseling, resume assistance, or skills assessment), the value of these benefits may be income to them and subject to all withholding taxes. However, the value of these services will not be subject to any employment taxes if:

However, if you receive no additional benefit from providing the services, or if the services are not provided on the basis of employee need, then the value of the services is treated as wages and is subject to federal income tax withholding and social security and Medicare taxes. Similarly, if an employee receives the outplacement services in exchange for reduced severance pay (or other taxable compensation), then the amount the severance pay is reduced is treated as wages for employment tax purposes.

Payments made under a voluntary guarantee to employees for idle time (any time during which an employee performs no services) are wages for the purposes of social security, Medicare, FUTA taxes, and federal income tax withholding.

Treat back pay as wages in the year paid and withhold and pay employment taxes as required. If back pay was awarded by a court or government agency to enforce a federal or state statute protecting an employee's right to employment or wages, special rules apply for reporting those wages to the Social Security Administration. These rules also apply to litigation actions, and settlement agreements or agency directives that are resolved out of court and not under a court decree or order. Examples of pertinent statutes include, but are not limited to, the National Labor Relations Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Equal Pay Act, and Age Discrimination in Employment Act. See Publication 957, Reporting Back Pay and Special Wage Payments to the Social Security Administration, and Form SSA-131, Employer Report of Special Wage Payments, for details.

If you pay, under a plan, supplemental unemployment benefits to a former employee, all or part of the payments may be taxable and subject to federal income tax withholding, depending on how the plan is funded. Amounts that represent a return to the employee of amounts previously subject to tax are not taxable and are not subject to withholding. You should withhold federal income tax on the taxable part of the payments made, under a plan, to an employee who is involuntarily separated because of a reduction in force, discontinuance of a plant or operation, or other similar condition. It does not matter whether the separation is temporary or permanent.

There are special rules that apply in determining whether benefits qualify as supplemental unemployment benefits that are excluded from wages for social security, Medicare, and FUTA purposes. To qualify as supplemental unemployment benefits for these purposes, the benefits must meet the following requirements.

Withholding on taxable supplemental unemployment benefits must be based on the withholding certificate (Form W-4) that the employee gave to you.

A golden parachute payment is a contract entered into by a corporation and key personnel under which the corporation agrees to pay certain amounts to its key personnel in the event of a change in ownership or control of the corporation. Payments to employees under golden parachute contracts are subject to social security, Medicare, FUTA taxes, and federal income tax withholding.

Beginning with payments under contracts entered into, significantly amended, or renewed after June 14, 1984, no deduction is allowed to the corporation for any excess parachute payment. A payment is generally considered to be an excess parachute payment if it equals or exceeds three times the average annual compensation of the recipient over the previous 5-year period. The amount over the average is the excess parachute payment. The recipient of an excess parachute payment is subject to a 20% nondeductible excise tax. If the recipient is an employee, the 20% excise tax is to be withheld by the corporation.

In general, if an employer lends an employee more than $10,000 at an interest rate less than the current applicable federal rate (AFR), the difference between the interest paid and the interest that would be paid under the AFR is considered additional compensation to the employee. This rule applies to a loan of $10,000 or less if one of its principal purposes is the avoidance of federal tax.

This additional compensation to the employee is subject to social security, Medicare, and FUTA taxes, but not to federal income tax withholding. Include it in compensation on Form W-2 (or Form 1099-MISC for an independent contractor). The AFR is established monthly and published by the IRS each month in the Internal Revenue Bulletin. You can get these rates by calling 1-800-829-4933 or by accessing the IRS website at www.irs.gov. For more information, see section 7872 and its related Regulations.

If you establish a leave sharing plan for your employees that allows them to transfer leave to other employees for medical emergencies, the amounts paid to the recipients of the leave are considered wages. These amounts are includible in the gross income of the recipients and are subject to social security, Medicare, and FUTA taxes, and federal income tax withholding. Do not include these amounts in the income of the transferrors. These rules apply only to leave sharing plans that permit employees to transfer leave to other employees for medical emergencies.

Employer payments made by an educational institution or a tax-exempt organization to purchase a tax-sheltered annuity for an employee (annual deferrals) are included in the employee's social security and Medicare wages if the payments are made because of a salary reduction agreement. However, they are not included in box 1 on Form W-2 in the year the deferrals are made and are not subject to federal income tax withholding. See Regulations section 31.3121(a)(5)-2T for the definition of a salary reduction agreement.

An employer's SEP contributions to an employee's individual retirement arrangement (IRA) are excluded from the employee's gross income. These excluded amounts are not subject to social security, Medicare, FUTA taxes, or federal income tax withholding. However, any SEP contributions paid under a salary reduction agreement (SARSEP) are included in wages for purposes of social security and Medicare taxes and for FUTA. See Publication 560, Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans), for more information about SEPs.

Employer and employee contributions to a savings incentive match plan for employees (SIMPLE) retirement account (subject to limitations) are excludable from the employee's income and are exempt from federal income tax withholding. An employer's nonelective (2%) or matching contributions are exempt from social security, Medicare, and FUTA taxes. However, an employee's salary reduction contributions to a SIMPLE are subject to social security, Medicare, and FUTA taxes. For more information about SIMPLE retirement plans, see Publication 560.

Sick pay generally means any amount paid under a plan because of an employee's temporary absence from work due to injury, sickness, or disability. It may be paid by either the employer or a third party, such as an insurance company. Sick pay includes both short- and long-term benefits. It is often expressed as a percentage of the employee's regular wages.

Sick pay does not include the following payments.