In a short piece posted to Mondaq, Melissa Raphan and Michael Iwan write that the US Treasury Department will be examining the relationship that independent contractors have with the companies that contract with them:
It is too early to know whether the Treasury Department’s focus will be limited simply to tax collection mechanisms or will include a more systemic review of independent contractor status. IRS representatives have, for example, in recent years, floated the idea of requiring companies to withhold taxes from payments made to non-wage workers. If, however, the Treasury Department opts to scrutinize the factors distinguishing independent contractors from employees, it opens the possibility that some individuals performing work for companies under independent contractor agreements might, in fact, be statutory employees on whose behalf companies should be (and arguably should have been) withholding income taxes and paying payroll taxes (such as FICA and FUTA).
http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=38402&email_access=on
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