B. I went down the route of working as a sole proprietor for over 10 years. I nearly lost my house twice and got hosed-up in a lawsuit where I “won the battle but lost the war” mainly because of personal exposure I took on from a client (a Corp) whereas I was a sole proprietor rather than a Corp or LLC. My lawyer was new and didn’t recognize that this guy had used a very classic approach to judgement-proof himself and his business, and after “we” won what amounted to a worthless judgement, my lawyer resigned and sued me for his fees. Never mind that my “client” had actually been awarded 100% of my judgment against him from a malpractice claim, it was totally uncollectible, and my lawyer never saw it coming.

C. This all cost me a LOT of money, time, stress, and aggravation, (all of those things you mentioned, and more) and ended up forcing me to cash out my retirement funds to keep from losing pretty much everything.

D. I was audited by the IRS several times, although in the end I didn’t owe them anything. It’s just that as a sole proprietor there are lots of perfectly legitimate tax write-offs you can claim that raise enough flags with them that you attract audits. Audits are quite nerve-racking, take a lot of time, and can end up costing your a LOT of money.

E. in 2009 I got a big contract in another state, and met with a tax advisor who basically laid out most of what I stated; he convinced me to set up a C-Corp and use a 3rd-party to process my payroll. It ended up being the easiest, simplest gig I ever had; my personal taxes were simple to file; my corp taxes were very straightforward; very little of the stuff you mentioned applied; and my CPA said it saved me money over not having the Corp. I had it for a few years and it really simplified a ton of stuff.

-David Schwartz

On Aug 19, 2022, at 5:40 PM, Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

On Sat, 2022-08-20 at 00:07 +0000, David Schwartz via PLUG-discuss wrote:
All of that noise

Not noise.

really only applies to someone who’s a glutton for punishment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

If you value your time, energy, and sanity, here’s what you want to do.

A little more advice for those choosing to be tech contractors.

You need to sell your services, so be nice. Don't call other peoples' statements
"noise". Don't imply that they're "a glutton for punishment". And no matter how
smart and successful you consider yourself, don't gloat over how valuable your time,
energy and sanity are.

I stand by what I wrote in my previous post.

SteveT
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