1099 vs. W-2 (Company Driver)

1099 say's run, now. If your a company driver you don't want 1099, its for contractor, not employee's.

 

If the trucking company is giving you a truck and deciding which freight you haul, where/when then they ought to pay you as a W-2 employee, not 1099. That's also the opinion of the IRS, not just me. You are right 1099 is meant to be independent contractors providing a service to a company. The trucking company is trying to take advantage of the new driver not knowing they are walking into a tax problem and the new driver not reporting the company to the IRS for misclassifying an employee as a independent contractor. IMO, you should ignore all 1099 offers because you are almost certainly dealing with cheaters who are happy to cheat you and cheat the IRS until you get the IRS to review the trucking company. There is no good way to work for a dishonest company and not get cheated. The company has a lot more experience getting away with cheating drivers than new drivers have of not getting cheated. It feel like no matter how many times new drivers get cheated, they next new driver thinks he will not be cheated. You do what you want and you get what you get. About the only way to make 1099 worse is when you have to pay the expenses of the truck and then get paid. Your primary job is to protect yourself, but if you don't protect yourself you have nobody else to blame and the warnings you try to give to new drivers not to make the same mistake will be ignored since new drivers seem genetically unable to listen to any warnings. If you are desperate now, imagine 9 months from now when you haven't made the money you expect AND you owe the IRS thousands of dollars.

 

It's a good question, and don't be fooled, every single one of us has worked a 1099. It's not the 1099 so much, but how you are paid, %, by the mile, or hourly. I've never worked for a company getting paid by the hour and a 1099. I don't think a 1099 is all bad, I think you can take more deductions and be more independent, but most contractors get a 1099, and it was the quarterly taxes that killed me. It seemed a lot different when it just came off the check, but a lot harder actually doing that yourself, right about the time you need steer tires too. You can't win there, and do yourself a favor, just stay with a W2.

 

Thanks for educating yourself without confirmation bias.

The last company job we ran - ODFL - now pays teams, hazmat , doubles, tanker endorsement, clean record -

Over 90 cpm - on W2.

You’d need $1.30/mile on 1099 to match that.

I know many o/o that struggle to clear that figure after expenses, running their own business.

 

So ~40 cents per mile more is what is needed to run as 1099 successfully?
I would really like to see a breakdown of the costs and income involved that would support that.

 

I worked for a 1099 company for a bit. The only good thing was, they looked at us as independent contractors so we could take off whenever we wanted without much fuss. Other than that, there were no benefits to it like many w2 companies offer such as 401k, health insurance or any of that. Anything happens on the job and the company washes their hands of you.

 

When I got my own in the late 80s, previously being a by the hour driver, I got a stark lesson on how to , um, bend the rules, so to say. Bogus repair receipts, double fuel receipts, ( one guy said, how do they know if your truck gets 3 mpg?) heck a guy I know claimed his freakin' dogs food, saying the dog guarded the truck, all before electronics, that is.That was my biggest downfall, is I didn't do any of those things, trying to do it "by the book", and should have known better. I never worked on a 1099 again.

 

Lol ya when I was an O/O I was very by the book with taxes. I had friends who did all sorts of stuff like that. Bought side by sides as tax write offs because it was used to take “business partners” on hunting trips which of course were also tax deductible. One guy bought a tractor with all the attachments for his place but it was deductible because he used it to maintain his parking area for his truck which was just grass covered lawn. I guess it all works until you get caught.

 

You got me - I did just pull that figure out of my rear end.

Once you pay for self employment taxes, health insurance, fund retirement accounts, CPA for business taxes . . . that's what I'm saying.