Another Leasing Scam--advice please

I have roughly $12000 in truck payments, $8000 this year. All other expenses minus fuel totals around $48,000. I'm only looking to get the payments I made and the maintenance that I did, reimbursed since they violated the contract and not me, then terminated it when I called them on it. They also can't really claim any depreciation as all the drivers that got the trucks after me were charged at least $5000 more than what I was being charged for the same truck in the condition that I left it in.

That reminds me, isn't there a law, if not federal, a state law in PA that says that they have to hold the truck in the same condition for 30 days to allow me to find my own financing? They had another guy driving it 3 days later, 2 days before the so called maintenance that they are claiming that they did on it.

 

I'm not really sure how I would be avoiding paying taxes whether I'm an independent contractor or an employee, both have to pay taxes. I didn't have a lawyer look at it because I read it and it's a solid lease and it was a solid contract, they didn't follow the conditions though.

By the way, I found a typo in the contract that says "Other than normal wear and tear, contractor is responsible for his own repairs." Wouldn't that mean that all the normal wear and tear on the truck should have been paid by the company? Stupid question, I know, but I also found another one that I can't wrap my head around. There is a line that says "If contractor terminates the contract then he forfeits his last pay for insurance and maintenance". I didn't terminate it, the company did, so shouldn't I have gotten my last check minus fuel, truck and trailer payment, and escrow?

 

It might be a stretch, but that's an asset that I lost due to their breach of contract.

 

I have found another job, but I had to take a local job that doesn't pay as much to handle this. The meeting with the attorney is tomorrow afternoon.

I brought up the IRS definition of independent contractor and employee to show that they treated me as an employee. That is a federal institution defining that. I intended nothing about taxes, but if they treated me like an employee (no say in what I did or how and when it would be done [within reasonable limits]) then I shouldn't have had the financial obligations of an independent contractor. That's a long shot too, but I'm sure these are things the lawyer will want to discuss with me. BTW, I only brought it up because I saw in another thread that a person was asking how they can consider you an independent contractor if it is their truck and they can fire you.

 

I didn't have a lease, I had a contract of sale. Lawyer said they are very different. He also said to bring in a report of all my expenses and have it broke down into categories. He also said as far as the IRS and Worker's Comp is concerned, I am an employee and it doesn't matter what the company called it. Wants to go over all of the paperwork, get my consent to show it to a Safety Coordinator that he knows, and see which way we're going to handle it. Also said as far as he is concerned this is one of the bigger scams that he's seen and he's very intrigued by it and wonders why no one else has taken him to court for it yet.

 

Well, I thought I was. What the deal was though is that instead of leasing it, I had a contract to buy the truck by making $250 payments per week. Lawyer said it wasn't a lease but a contract of sale. There weren't many stipulations on the contract of sale itself, just that I had to make the payments, which I did. Then there was a separate contract for owner operators between myself and the company and that had all the stipulations in it.

There was a lot more to this than I could type on here in the original post, but I didn't want to write a book. It took right around 2 hours to go over everything with the lawyer.

The lawyer told me that what makes me an employer is the fact that if I didn't want to haul a particular load, or if I wanted to go home, I couldn't turn down a load or go home if I wanted. I was told what days I had to work and was forced to haul whatever they wanted me to. Even with "freedom of action" (deciding where to purchase fuel and which routes to take) that didn't make me an independent contractor.