From the Construction Citizen — “As is happening in Texas and other states, lawmakers in North Carolina are now finally taking a look at what they should do to crack down on the epidemic levels of worker misclassification in the construction industry. Time Warner Cable News in Raleigh reports:
- It comes on the heels of an investigative series in the News and Observer and its affiliated newspapers, highlighting the illegal practice of classifying employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying taxes and other benefits.
- Last year North Carolina’s Division of employment Security re-classified nearly 5,700 workers from independent contractors to employees. So far this year tax auditors have already re-classified nearly 4,000 employees.
- Investigators estimate in North Carolina it’s added up to nearly a half billion dollars in lost state and federal taxes.
While they’re just starting to look at the issue in North Carolina, lawmakers in Texas have been studying the issue in-depth ahead of the 2015 session of the Legislature. They’ve looked at it previously, and in 2013 they actually took a first step of imposing penalties for misclassification of workers on public projects….”
Read the full story at Spurred by Media Coverage, North Carolina Lawmakers Zero In on Worker Misclassification .
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- Employee vs. Independent Contractor: Can You Tell the Difference? (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)