Thoughts on 1099 jobs vs W2?

Yeah but a lot of trucking companies try to weasel out of Workmen’s Comp. claims as well. I’m in my mid 50s I’ve never had a Workmen’s Comp. situation in my life although there have been several times I could have. I tend to just let things heal on their own. but I’ve heard some horror stories of truck drivers getting seriously injured while performing job duties and the companies trying to get out of paying the claim.
I know a guy, flatbed driver who fell and hit his head on a steel pole. Permanent brain damage. At one point they had given him his final rights and didn’t think he was even going to live. Company wouldn’t allow the claim because he wasn’t logged on duty. As we all know we perform duties pretty regularly while not logged on duty. It’s the only way to survive out here. If we logged on duty for everything we did for the trucking company we wouldn’t have any hours left to drive. Long story short it turned into a multi million dollar legal battle. His medical bills totaled over half million alone and he’ll need lifetime care.

I had an old truck driver once tell me if you ever get injured on the job you better be able to crawl back into the cab and log yourself on duty before you call anybody and say you’re hurt.

 

Seems like a lot of the LTLs are paying right at $30 nowadays for P&D drivers. I know FedEx and Dayton are also around here. Like they actually start guys at top scale now. Used to be $18-20 was a decent starting wage back when I was a dock bumper 10 years ago. Easy job though.

 

What happens when your in an accident.

 

Nailed it!

 

The only people I know that take these jobs do it because they don't plan on paying the taxes. It usually takes about 5 years before the IRS starts sending collection notices. Since it takes so long they think they're getting away with it. Never mess with an entity that can pull money from your bank account without a court order.

I've seen it time and time again. I stopped even trying to warn these guys. The last one told me Ted Cruz told him he doesn't have to pay taxes if he declares he'll never collect social security. He started getting collection notices 3 months ago so that obviously didn't work out. Maybe that's what he named one of the voices in his head, I don't know.

 

It goes both ways unfortunately. Had a coworker get hurt pretty bad tarping a load in tennis shoes, stepped onto the edge of the load and broke some toes backwards. Proper footwear probably would have prevented that.

another driver fell off a load tarping, sat at home for close to 3 years due to covid, surgery, and recovery. He quit when PT was finished and went to work for someone else.

Another driver sat at home on long term disability for 10 years, then got divorced, immigrated to Canada and was miraculously healed and able to start driving a truck again.

That’s why I had to pay almost $6k in workmans comp insurance last year. Sure would rather put that to a personal insurance plan.

 

If you have the choice of not paying the IRS or the mafia, stiff the mafia. They won't take it personally and they don't have the resources like the IRS to track you down. By the time the IRS finds you you will owe way more than the money you hid from them. It's not worth it. I accidentally stiffed the IRS for $300 in payroll taxes, because I trusted an "accountant" working for the employer. The IRS sent me a collection letter about a week before the 3 years later and I owed them $3,000.

If you do owe the IRS money, they have a form where you propose a repayment plan. Fill that out, submit it, and start paying the amount in the proposal. It can take the IRS over a year to respond to your proposal. By the time the IRS responds, if you have repaid a substantial amount of the debt they often will approve your proposed plan.

 

IRS is tracking Venmo now. Don't want to get into politics, but this started last year.
Venmo - Share Payments