Black Out On RATE CONFIRMATIONS

In post #3, the OP said he was paid as a sub-contractor. I can't think of a single employer yet that has won the 1099 battle in court.

 

His word against the company? What nonsense. Does he have ettlement statements vs. paystubs?

 

Don't want to put words in his mouth, but I *think* Snowy is suggesting that the OP has no written contract that sets out the terms of his percentage....i.e. what percentage? percentage of gross? percentage net of fuel, percentage net of any in house "brokerage fees" etc etc etc.

What I am saying is.....the employer is up a creek on the 1099 issue and they will have to pay back taxes to the gov't and what not if the OP squeals to the IRS and if they follow up. Best to just pay what they owe the OP and let him go away. Of course once the OP is paid he may squeal anyway. That's the risk you take with a 1099 and that's why we don't do it here....even when the employee wants to.

 

Fair enough, i assumed he was talking about an employment contract per se.

Even without that contract, it will be immediately obvious from settlement statement what the agreement was (i.e. what the percentage was, and what was included in the gross). If they are fudging those numbers in the office before sending the statement out, any lawyer will have their ### in a sling during discovery. It'll never make it to a judge.

 

This happened to my dad years ago, he was afraid to file the taxes because he thought the IRS would come after him. It screwed me out of going to college that year, so I went off to the Army instead. When he finally went to the IRS and filed the taxes they went after the employer for the taxes owed, and my dad was not trying to squeal. There is a proper way to run a 1099 program and that is what we do at our company. There are more rip offs out there that are just simply trying to take advantage of the drivers and not pay their fair share in taxes. I would rather pay our operators more and let them take the deductions for being self-employed vs holding money out of their pay and giving it to the government. Our operators lease the equipment or own their own, pay for the fuel, decide if and where they want to run, take care of the maintenance, and so on. If we were to try and force them to do what we wanted then they become employees, I am amazed at how many in trucking and other industries want to make others sub-contractors but still want to control them like employees. You can't have it both ways it is one or the other.

 

I hope you have a legal fund.

I think you're in the right and I think you will "win" but you're going to have to front alot of money and whatever you"win" probably won't be worth your time. That said, I would probably call my lawyer too.

Since 2007, I've been in a wrongful dismissal suit against my former employer of 17 years and I still haven't seen any money but I have them where I want them LOL. Mind you, I am suing one of the largest companies in the US, however IIRC my lawyer says his bill is up to $18,000. Are you prepared to lay out legal fees for that long?

The good news is, now that you're been "terminated for insubordination", you might be entitled to severance.