From: IRS Summertime Tax Tip 2009-20

Here are the top ten things every business owner should know about hiring people as independent contractors versus hiring them as employees.

1. Three characteristics are used by the IRS to determine the relationship between businesses and workers: Behavioral Control, Financial Control, and the Type of Relationship.

2. Behavioral Control covers facts that show whether the business has a right to direct or control how the work is done through instructions, training or other means.

3. Financial Control covers facts that show whether the business has a right to direct or control the financial and business aspects of the worker’s job.

4. The Type of Relationship factor relates to how the workers and the business owner perceive their relationship.

5. If you have the right to control or direct not only what is to be done, but also how it is to be done, then your workers are most likely employees.

6. If you can direct or control only the result of the work done — and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result — then your workers are probably independent contractors.

7. Employers who misclassify workers as independent contractors can end up with substantial tax bills. Additionally, they can face penalties for failing to pay employment taxes and for failing to file required tax forms.

8. Workers can avoid higher tax bills and lost benefits if they know their proper status.

9. Both employers and workers can ask the IRS to make a determination on whether a specific individual is an independent contractor or an employee by filing a Form SS-8 – Determination of Worker Status for Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding – with the IRS.

10. You can learn more about the critical determination of a worker’s status as an Independent Contractor or Employee at IRS.gov by selecting the Small Business link.  Additional resources include IRS Publication 15-A, Employer’s Supplemental Tax Guide, Publication 1779, Independent Contractor or Employee, and Publication 1976, Do You Qualify for Relief under Section 530? These publications and Form SS-8 are available on the IRS Web site or by calling the IRS at 800-829-3676 (800-TAX-FORM).

What an amazing event! Two full-days of fantastic speakers, learning, inspiration, networking, giveaways – and food (!) – for only $30. My fellow campers and I were absolutely blown away at this weekend long shindig, which actually started off with a Friday night Welcome Party at AMF Richardson Lanes. Probably the best bang for the buck among tech conferences anywhere. This not-for-profit event wouldn’t have been even close to possible without these incredibly generous sponsors:

Woopra (Platinum) – the world’s most comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application. And it’s free!

Layered Tech (Gold) – leading global provider of managed dedicated hosting, on-demand grid/virtualization computing, and Web services.

The University of Texas at Dallas (Gold) – UTD’s Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, and the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. UTD provided logistical support as well as facilities, internet connectivity, and more!

TAYLORMARK (Silver) – Dallas based, Apple focused information technology professional services company.

Automattic (Silver) – Where it all started. The company behind WordPress.com/.org, Akismet, Gravatar, and more. Dedicated to Open Source.

ZipServers (Bronze) – Global, on-demand data center and hosting services from facilities across the U.S. Second year WordCamp Dallas supporter. Offered 3 months free to campers!

ServerBeach (Bronze) – A leading Dedicated Hosting provider that delivers powerful dedicated servers, convenient server management tools, and 24×7x365 support. Plans starting at just $75/month.

The WordPress Podcast (Bronze)- the #1 podcast for WordPress-related news, tips and information. Run by former WordCamp organizer Charles Stricklin.

X-Company – Bringing you Wordpressized. Everything Wordpress, from designing themes and creating widgets, to coding custom plugins, and hosting.

Just as important as the sponsors to this extremely well-planned and smooth-running event, were the many volunteers. Topping this list were John Pozadzides, aka “John P” (of iFusion Labs/Woopra, Layered Tech and OneMansBlog) and Cali Lewis (of GeekBrief.tv). John served as a very entertaining Master of Ceremonies and panel moderator. Cali gave an engaging presentation, and she and her team of volunteers live-streamed the entire conference (courtesy of GeekBrief.tv) and kept the presentations (mostly) on schedule and everything running very smoothly. The few technical hiccups were quickly resolved and accepted with grace and humor by campers. John and Cali (and several others I’m sure) must’ve spent countless hours on planning and logistics.

In Part 2 I’ll talk about my key takeaways from the great speakers and their presentations.

With ActiveWords you can automate a wondrous number of repeating tasks and keystrokes:

• Substitute Text (Texter is okay for this, but buggy)
• Launch Programs
• Open Documents & Folders
• Navigate to Web Sites
• Send Email
• Open Window Settings
• Scripting (automate action sequences; PLUS and Enterprise versions)

Enter or highlight words (even just a letter or two) from any context, anywhere on your computer to trigger these custom actions. ActiveWords will even learn your navigation habits and suggest new shortcuts.

The ActiveWords Productivity Summary shows that I’ve saved an estimated $10 in just the last couple of days, based on my average hourly rate (entered in User Settings). Just while playing around and learning the program!

The one-time $49.99 price tag makes this a no-brainer when my 60-day free trial is up.

Learn more and try it for yourself at ActiveWords.com

Photo credit: Jon_Aquino / CC BY 2.0

Tune In!
WordCamp Dallas will be streamed live all weekend
June 27th & June 28th
9:30 AM to 5:00 PM
Central Time

Meryl Evans at Web Worker Daily (a favorite blog) offers this awesomely simple tip: create a Social Media folder and matching filters for batch processing.

I set this up for myself and a client several weeks ago. It has saved loads of time and reduced inbox clutter significantly. Now, I just go to my Social Media folder and handle (check new followers, accept connections, reply, etc.) all at once, according to my schedule.

Email and time management in one. Try it, you’ll like it

Let me start by saying that I adore Jeremiah. I think he’s brilliant, love his Web Strategy blog, and had the good fortune to meet and talk with him in person at SXSW Interactive this year (no dark circles then). But…

I agree with much of what he said in his post yesterday, “Looking Behind the Curtains on the Social Media Stage: Humans Don’t Scale”. Where the 1:1 relationship is concerned, there’s no substitute. You either are authentically you – or you are not. But there are aspects of social media that virtual assistants can handle that free clients up for more of that intended 1:1 interaction. Going through Jeremiah’s post:

“Many social media bloggers don’t even manage their own accounts, they often hire virtual assistants to do their Facebook and Twitter follows and replies.”

I have some clients whose friending policy is to accept all connection requests. In this case, it makes no difference whether they accept them with their own keyboard clicks, or whether I do so for them. If the app had a built-in way to accept them automatically, we would utilize it. Makes no difference to the requestor whatsoever. Where there is a personal message along with the request, I can draw the client’s attention to it for a timely reply. Otherwise, they can go in and review new connections at a later time and respond personally if they choose.

“Quite of few of those top social media bloggers don’t even answer their own emails, they have a virtual assistant that reviews them, sorts them, and sometimes responds on their behalf.”

I absolutely agree that a response should be in a person’s own words, period. But if a client is receiving hundreds of emails daily – not an uncommon thing these days – there is good reason to have someone review, sort and prioritize them. This increases efficiency many times over, as well as catches important opportunities and issues that might be overlooked in a crowded inbox.

Employing filters and folders or labels, a virtual assistant can skim an inbox and have it ready for a client to tackle in no time. This is no different than the pre-email days, when most correspondence was hard copy. An assistant would open and sort the mail and interoffice memos, presenting it at the ready for further processing.

Further, along the way a VA may discover some things that they can proactively handle for a client. Believe me, this saves so much time for and gets rave reviews from my customers. NEVER pretending to be them, rather acting as their assistant – usually from their own domain. For instance: Denise@INSERTCLIENTDOMAIN.com.

I also advise and work with clients to create email templates or hotstrings – in their own voice – of email replies that they find themselves typing over and over again. This saves an incredible amount of time when fielding briefing requests and other standard inquiries.

This bears repeating: Having a virtual assistant go through your email can actually increase the likelihood of a timely personal response!

I very much agree with Jeremiah when he says that “the social media space is starting to look like just about every other industry that starts to get mainstream”.

When someone doesn’t write their own books, blog posts and tweets, this dilutes the effectiveness of the media and diminishes the trust factor, big-time. I know of someone (not my client, of course) in the “upper echelons” that doesn’t write their own tweets. This indeed makes me wary of interacting with – or even following or reading – anyone of so-called “rock star” status, wondering how many more are the same?

Personally, I’ve turned away a request to ghost write a social media ebook (although happy to edit) and would never work with someone who expected me to be their voice. I’m no one’s social media stunt double, and would admonish any virtual assistants out there who are filling that role.

No, humans “don’t scale well”. We each bring a unique offering to the table that can’t and shouldn’t be duplicated or faked. But there are ethical and authentic ways to delegate – even where social media and email is concerned – in order to handle more of what should be done personally. Just because you CAN do everything, does not mean that you SHOULD at a certain point.

A virtual assistant can play a vital role in helping you maintain those critical 1:1 relationships.

June 15 update per a client: “if you could do my inbox regularly – that would be awesome. It made me feel like a new person.”

Image by One Speckled Frog via Flickr

I don’t fret too much over the nuances of social media etiquette. I’m simply on my best behavior  – or decent anyway – and expect the same of others.

So a couple of things I experienced today really bugged me – one blatant and one simply thoughtless.

First was on twitter. Someone I follow (who also follows me) sent me an @ message with a link to her business video on YouTube, with a note to “enjoy”. I was puzzled, thinking I’d forgotten the thread of a current conversation. Looking back there was nothing, so I asked her why she sent it. No reply. Then I looked at her twitter profile and realized she had sent video links to many others too. Now, I’m thinking that someone who knows enough to make, upload and distribute that video surely has heard of spam – as in, it’s a bad thing. So I sent her a link to The Twitter Rules, unfollowed and blocked her, and reported her to twitter. Geez.

Next, I saw that someone on one of my LinkedIn groups had posed a question that I could answer. Cool! So I spent the next several minutes crafting a very thoughtful reply. Shortly, an update arrived in my inbox with a thank you from the asker – to me as well as the one other person who posted an answer. Very nice. Or so I thought. Followed the link to the discussion…she had deleted it! What the heck?!? I messaged her asking why she had removed the Q&A. Her answer was that she agreed with what I said and realized that the topic wasn’t really what she wanted to ask about. Hmm, did it not register with her that it was a public forum, and that members put a bit of thought into their replies and contributions? The expectation is that our answers will remain for others’ benefit and to showcase our expertise. To have them chucked in the “round file” is quite insulting and will make me think twice before answering next time.

What do you think? Any social networking bees in your bonnet today?

clipped from www.gtdtimes.com

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On Thursday, May 28th from 10AM-11AM Pacific Time in California (check your local time), clear your schedule to do a GTD Weekly Review.  Follow me @GTDCoachKelly, or follow the tag #Tweekly.  I’ll walk everyone through the GTD Weekly Review checklist.  We’ll have 5 minutes per step before moving on to the next one.  Yes, 5 minutes.  Idea is to get you through a taste of all of 11 steps.  If you’re not done with a step, just bookmark your next actions list with what’s left and move on to the next one.  I’ll Tweet the step and an explanation of what you can do.  Or, if you are so inspired and getting good stuff out of the step you’re on, stay there. There’s no “should” here except to get whatever value you want to get out of it!

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Grab a free copy of the Weekly Review checklist before the Big Day.

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By the way, you can follow David Allen on Twitter @GTDGuy.  There’s also loads of traffic with the #gtd tag.

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