Worker's Comp.....

You have to pay it. Obviously that means there is less money available to pay him, but officially you pay worker's comp.

If I ever have an employee, I plan on showing them a paystub breaking down how much I'm paying vs how much they're getting. If people knew that $800/month in worker's comp, $550/month in medicare/ss, $1200/month in state & federal income taxes are being taken from their pay, they might stop voting for candidates making the biggest promises.

 

You have to pay for workers compensation out of your business, you are not allowed to charge your employees for workers comp, you have to set his pay rate structure so you make enough to cover your responsibility for workers comp and your share of the employment taxes (federal is 15.4%). I don't know what 25% of revenue will work out to in actual dollars but here in Pennsylvania workers comp for drivers is typically $14 per $100 in payroll, meaning it costs me almost 30% more than I actually pay my employee to drive for me (14% workers comp and 15% payroll tax). It can be very expensive to have employees, and do not try to get away with the 1099 scam, making them contractors, especially if he is a California resident, they are cracking down hard on that. Also, if he is a California resident and will only drive in California you have other things you have to do like provide paid meal breaks and overtime. I am not trying to scare you, but I have seen many friends try to hire someone and grow before they were ready and truly understood what they had to do and when the tax man came hunting it cost them everything.

One last thing, don't try to get by without workers comp, a good friend of mine did and his driver had a heart attack while on duty, this was not an accident or caused by the job, his employee was a two pack a day smoker and in bad health, but in thee end he ended up paying all of the drivers medical bills and a huge fine to the state because that should have been a worker comp claim but he did not have the insurance in place. Almost lost his business and house because of it.

 

You might check to see if you can provide an occupational accident policy instead of workers comp. It will cost less and works pretty much the same. The cost is about $140/month per driver. OOIDA offers these policies.

 

If you hire him in the state where your business is, where he lives has no bearing on the amount workmans comp cost you, If you hire him and he is in CA when you hire him they it would.

Simple solution you should already know, Do not hire them till they pass a drug test administered locally at your industrial medical you use near your office. The way you phrase it is, you have a job as long as you pass the drug test here in (insert where ever you are).

I think some of these "business owners" are Trolls.

 

California determines the location of the job is wherevr the drivers home terminal is, if the driver takes his truck home for off duty time and the driver lives in California then as far as the the state is concerned he based out of California.

The driver must be covered by workers comp that is accepted by Califronia and may not be 1099'ed.

This info comes from being born in and living in California for 40 years before moving out of state, and managing truck companies along with owning a couple of trucks and hiring drivers.

 

Not trus=e at all, I live here in CA, Mojave. I am employed by LaCaeyse Transport Des Moines, IA I am in the middle o a workemans comp claim, they are still covering the medical. The truck And I park here in Mojave regularly. I take my resets at home. I have only been in the comapny ard a couple of times since feb 20th. California stated Iam a Iowa employee and not covered by CA Workmans Comp, because I was hired in Iowa, not CA.

Before I was hired, I was here at home and was tole you have a job with us as long as you pass a local administered drug tes here in Iowa. My Comp lawyer, state of CA & Iowa states that this makes me covered by IA.

I would rather have the CA coverage it would have paid me 200.00 per week more. Where and when you are hired deteremines, When I was hired by IWX in Kingman I was covered by AZ, not CA or MO....

 

Yes you are covered by the Iowa workers comp, but that policy is accepted by Cali.

You can actually get compensated under the rate of whatever stae you were injured in (99% of the time) if your lawyer is not aware of this then it might not hurt to at least speak to a couple of other attorneys.

Find out the rate of whatever stae you were injured in (and I don't mean the standard 66%, I mean the max pay per week) and see if you could do better.