412: The Scary Truth About 1099's and Subcontractors | Things To Know!

Before we got on. Just brushing up my skills on California's 1099 independent contractor rules, because those are fricking wacko. They're coming from the IRS shop.

You mean California would have a different rule than the other 49 states? Not California. We're going to come to the business perspective on this when you're hiring subs or people here in a minute. And I want to talk about nannies. Maybe nannies is a good transition to go from personal. Somewhere in between personal and business is a nanny or a household employee.

Sometimes you want someone to be an independent contractor to you. Sometimes. Sometimes you want them to be an employee to you.

Welcome, everybody, to this week's episode of the Main street business podcast with yours truly, Mark Kohler and the amazing Matt Sorenson. Excited to be here with you in this brisk, cool January, whatever weather you've got.

But it reminds me of, oh, it's time to get my 1099s out and my W2s and, you know. So that's what. You talked about that on the podcast today.

Yeah. Well, you.

I wish. I was thinking of skiing, which I will be doing this weekend, though. But, you know, we are at work. I am at work today. Okay. And. And I was doing some reading before we got on. Just brushing up my skills on California's 1099 independent contractor rules, because those are freaking wacko.

They're. You mean California would have a different rule than the other 49 states? Not California. Freaking A. I am so sick.

Why?

Who is in California making all these dumb rules? I just do not get it.

Oh, I don't know.

I don't.

We can't blame Schwarzenegger.

No. Okay, well, if any of you are a nerd as well and thinking of 1099s in January, get a life. But you're at the right spot because we're your tribe. We're part of you here. Okay, today's topic is about subcontractors. And it's not just 1099, it's what the freak should you be worrying about when you hire subcontractors? I want to talk about nannies, household employees, subs that might be helping you in your personal home remodel, subs that you might be using in your business, and what the rules are when it comes to this 1099 issue. And just being smart when you hire subcontractors because it can be a nightmare. So that's our topic today. We got a lot to cover. We're going to hit it hard and fast. Matt Sorensen okay, will you choose topic number one? What do you want to hit on that?

I think we got to start. What is an independent contractor? You know, you got to contrast that because it has legal implications in terms of liability for you and what you can get sued at versus an employee sued for. And then also it has different tax implications. Yes. So. So you need to know who, who can be an independent contractor and whether you want them to be an independent contractor. Sometimes you want someone to be an independent contractor to you, sometimes you want them to be an employee to you because there's again, there's different tax and legal rules. So.

And sometimes you don't get a choice.

Right. They just are what they are.

They are.

They are.

Yeah. Okay, well, let me make an initial statement, if I may, with that introduction. My fine, sir. Okay. I would say this. If any of you are hiring a contractor to work for you on a personal basis, let's say someone's going to come fix your stove or someone's going to come work on your furnace, or someone's going to come do your landscaping, or someone's going to fix your car.

I like how you start out with fix your stove.

I don't know where that came from. My stove.

I'm just using examples.

I love a good woof, you know, gas lit, you know, restaurant quality stove. I don't know. I just came up with stove. My stove's working, I tell you. One of my fireplaces. Yeah, there's a guy.

There's a guy out there for.

There's a guy. Some of you might be hiring a subcontractor to put a new bass woofer in the trunk of your car because your muffler's not loud enough already. So you need more sound coming out of your car down the road. Those 25 year old someones that like that. So anyway, if you're hiring someone to do personal work or services for you personally, do not worry about 1099s. You do not need to issue a 1099. Pay them however the hell you want. But we want to use good practices of not paying people in advance for something we haven't seen yet. Want to make sure there's a good agreement, there's a good understanding as to progress payments and having a good written understanding as to who's doing what. Because I've gotten ripped off of people constantly when there's not clarity. And I want to give one example. I hired a landscaper recently down in Phoenix to do a little cleanup on a yard. And I was so impressed he's there with his phone. He. He's taking pictures of exactly what I wanted him to do. And then he said, okay, I'm gonna send you back an agreement. And he sent it back via text. Here's what I'm gonna do. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Here's when I'm gonna get paid. Here's how you're gonna pay me and agree to this by clicking here. And I was like, wow, I love it. And then when he was done, he sent me pictures of what he did and said, I wanna get paid. And I think this poor guy had gotten burned before, but it protected him and it protected me. And I think we need to do more of that when we're hiring people and really be clear. And using our damn phones is a perfect opportunity.

Right? Yeah. I think. You know what's crazy is, sure, that's a great little legal agreement, but that was also communication. A lot of times you need to get on the same page. And you realize after, like remodeling a house this year myself, you get on the same page with these contractors about what's. What's happening. Putting it in writing helps you get on the same page.

Right.

Taking pictures and showing. Oh, when we talked about this a month ago, and now you finally get around to it. You know, pictures, paint a thousand words. So.

So it sounds like I'm opening up some wounds here. Am I opening up some wounds here?

Yes. Little sore spot. Little sore spot. But as attorney, I'll tell you one thing. We get all the time from individual clients or our business clients is they may have an agreement. Actually, sometimes they don't. And, you know, it's about a thousand bucks. It's 5,000, it's 10,000 guys. You have a dispute with someone about that, it ain't worth it. It's not worth it to hire a lawyer. You're going to pay us more in legal fees than what you're going to be able to collect. So don't think I'll just bring in the lawyers later and they'll sort it out if someone rips me off. No, no, no, no. The agreement is there as a fail safe, but it's also really important to just get on the same page with them in terms of what needs to be done, what the expectations are so that there's an understanding before work is done.

Yeah. Now we're going to come to the business perspective on this. When you're hiring subs or people here in a minute. And I want to talk about nannies. We're Going to. Maybe nannies is a good transition to go from personal. Somewhere in between personal and business is a nanny or a household employee, house cleaner, pool guy. I mean, Matt's got it all. Matt's got a pool guy, Matt's got a house cleaner. Matt's got all these cool things. I mean, he really living the dream. I just want to point that out.

Let me say my wife has those things, so I just get the benefit of living with her, you know, in her home, and it's all taken care of. You know, she's got people.

She's got people. Okay. So one last thing I want to say is that when you're hiring these contractors of a personal nature, you're not going to worry about the 1099. You want to have clarity on what the agreement is so you don't get ripped off. But there's one third point I want to make. You want to make sure you're not liable if they get hurt or something gets jacked up. And so whenever you're hiring someone to work on your yard or your house or your car, and they say the words, you can just pay me in cash or we don't need an agreement or don't you trust me? Or any of this crap, do not play along. And I know you say, well, if I hire someone reputable, I'm going to have to pay more. Yeah, there's a reason why you're hiring someone reputable. Because if that bozo gets hurt in your yard working on your yard, who's going to show up at the front door and go, one of my workers got their hand cut and we need to go to the hospital. And you have homeowner's insurance. Yeah, but you're a contractor. You're supposed to take care of that. Well, you agreed to pay me under the table. And so hiring a neighbor kid, hiring a college student to just work under the table in your house, I've done it. Frankly, I do it sometimes and I shouldn't. You're gonna be accepted. A little bit of personal reveal here.

You know, Mark's a risk taker. You know, he likes to.

He likes to live a little.

You know, I'll just keep, keep in mind there's a reason why companies out there say license, bonded insured. There's people care about that that does matter. Like if you're hiring someone, work on your home, for example, the fact they have a license to do that is a big deal. They had to take a test from it, and they can lose that license. And there's someone you can go complain to. Let's say it's a plumber. Okay. That there's a board that authorizes person to be a plumber. If they get 100 complaints or a certain amount of complaints and they're going to look into this person, they're going to lose their license. They've got something to lose. So. So, so those are good things to look for, that license. Bonded insured. I know it might seem like it's something. It's something. And that insurance is also there to protect if something happens while they're doing the job. So they're not coming after you because you're the only one that's got money or insurance.

Yeah. Let me give one last example, and I'll use a little personal reveal here. This is just. This is me today. Today I've got a. I say kid because he's in his 20s, but he's married with one child, younger, just graduated from college. Here's her in this local town here in. Up in Idaho. Works at a nearby store. I'll leave it at that. Won't mention his name. He's like, mark, I need to make some extra bucks. Seriously, I'm just being honest here. I'm going to give you an example of me being dumb right now and the risks I'm taking and encourage you not to do the same. I mean, I want to call the kettle black here. So this guy said, mark, I need to make a little extra money. Do you have any extra jobs I can do? I'll help you out at your office or around your shop. So here in our studio. Studio's looking great, by the way. James, Patrick, Jack, they're doing a freaking awesome job. Studio looks great. Matt looks like crap if you're watching on YouTube. But anyway, he's coming over tonight to do a little work in the shop he did last weekend. He kind of moved some things around for me and did some little cleanup and some work. And I'll be honest, if, heaven forbid, tonight he's working in the shop and he trips down the stairs and breaks his arm, I'm liable for that. I'm going to have to call the quote unquote homeowner's insurance policy for my shop and make a claim under that or I'm going to come out of pocket for it. He is a quote unquote personal employee of mine at my premises working for me. Not as a subcontractor, licensed bonded insured. He's not an employee. He's just someone I'm Paying under the table. They are going to show up and expect you to pay for their injury if they get hurt. And I, and I trust this kid. I think he's pretty smart. But what should I do? I should really hire a handyman that's licensed, bond insured, that has, or a moving crew or someone that's got insurance to come do some of these little handy jobs if I want protection. But I'm throwing caution to the wind tonight. I'll report next week.

Okay. All right. Well now when Mark says paying them under the table, I mean that's, you know, that means a lot of different things to some people. Some people think that means. Oh, you're not reporting it on taxes? No, that's still, it's not a write off reportable as taxes. But. Yeah, but it's like, but it's also, this isn't someone's in their business. This is independent contractor.

Really.

I mean, that's what he is to you from a tax standpoint. He's not an employee. But let me say if that person is an employee, let's contrast this. Workers comp is a great thing for you business owners. Like if you have an employee who's working for you that gets hurt on the job, their remedy is the workers comp insurance. And that is a great protection for employees. For employers, it's relatively inexpensive to get workers comp. If you're in a more high risk construction thing or whatever, you know, it's a little more expensive, but that protects you. And I as a lawyer, you know, this is back before I got into business, I was, I did some personal injury cases. And I remember like a personal injury lawyer, they get a case and they're like, wait, you work there and you got hurt there? Not interested. Workers comp, you're not going to get a lot and I don't want it because I, you know, I get a third of what you get, so I'm not interested. But oh, you got injured there and you were an independent contractor. Jackpot. I'm suing that employer and that place of business. And I don't have any caps or limits that workers comp has. I can, you know, it's to the moon, baby, for whatever we can get out of this thing. And so, so workers comp is actually a good thing from a liability standpoint. And with anybody getting hurt on the job, it protects you actually in an expensive way by having that insurance.

Yep. Now if any of you are confused, let me clarify something I've got. I'm looking over my Studio here, off to the right. I got my three guys over here. They're freaking awesome. They are all on a W2. They are all covered under workers comp. They've been building out the studio. They're working around in the shop here. If they were to get hurt, workers comp is going to cover the medical bills and any injuries that they might sustain here. They're an employee with workers comp. But this guy that's coming by tonight is doing personal favor work for me. So. So when I say under the table, I'm not trying to write it off. He's not an employee, he's not a subcontractor. It's just helping out with personal stuff. Well, what I'm trying to be clear about here, people, is when you pay someone cash to come on your property and do personal work for you, if they are not licensed, bonded insured and they get hurt, you're on the hook. Well, I don't have a business. Doesn't matter. You hire a pool guy to come work on your pool and there's a kid down the street and he falls in and hits his head and drowns. You're liable because he's not licensed, bonded insured and a subcontractor. And so it's not a business thing. What I was trying to explain. And now we make this transition. I like what Matt said, but if you do have a business and you do have employees, you're protected there. But whenever you just start paying someone cash, you better make sure they license bonded insured or you're on the hook, whether it's personal or business. So, okay, which can we want to talk about?

Do you want to hit the nanny? It's kind of in the middle, the household employee thing. And then we'll get the. The business 1099 versus W2, those considerations. So, yeah, there, there are people that are like household employees. And I think the nanny is the, you know, it's the classic one. It's the one that, you know, many people have lost their nominations to the Supreme Court or their, you know, appointment to secretary of whatever department and in our federal government because they didn't abide by the nanny tax. So there's this nanny tax or household employee structure where if they're coming to your home and in your home on a schedule, you can't call them a 1099 person. You can't be like, no, they're an independent contractor. No, they're really a household employee. You're not a business. But you have to pay this nanny Tax, which is kind of like treating them as an employee.

It is treating them like an employee. So here's the rule on this. Let me kind of.

It is.

Now, let's provide some clarity here. Let's say I hire a house cleaner, and my house cleaner works for other people. They have a small business as house cleaners. I'm just one of many clients of theirs. Now, whether they're licensed, bonded, insured, I may not stress about, or I will for liability. But when it comes to this nanny or household, it's really not the nanny tax, it's the household employee tax. Because if I have a house cleaner that's working for other people, I don't have to worry about the nanny, tax or household because they're working for other households. But let's say it's Brady Bunch, and I've got. Oh, my gosh, what is her name? I wanted to call her Alice. Alice. So I have an Alice. Let's say Alice is in the house all day long, cleaning and cooking. She kept that house really clean, too, by the way. I mean, I want to say the Brady Bunch house was immaculate.

And she had to wear a uniform. You know, that. Whatever. Yeah, she's always in that blue dress, I think. I don't remember.

Yeah, and she kind of lived like little Harry Potter, you know, she kind of lived in the closet, you know, behind the kitchen. I don't know, really. You know, she lived under the stairs. Anyway, so Alice worked exclusively for the Bradys, so the Brady's would have had to issue her a W2 and withhold FICA. Now, that is called the household employer Nanny tax. Now, let me just tell you the website for this. It's easy. Just go to nannytax.com they'll fill out the paper, help you fill out the paperwork. They'll issue the W2 to the nanny and send you what you need to send in for FICA employees. The nanny's happy, household employee's happy. You're good to go. But just to clarify again, if this is a landscaper, house cleaner, or nanny that works for a variety of people, don't worry about this tax. But if they work exclusively for you, you got to worry about this and nannytax.com and by the way, it's due in five days, is due January 15th, and you got to include this on schedule h of your 1040. And you got to file all this crap by January 31st this year. If you're late, there are penalties in interest.

It's ugly.

Yeah.

And it's not just the nanny, I guess, you know, if you got these big, you know, grounds at your home and this landscaper that just works at your house all day long, you know, keeping the yard immaculate, you know, landscaper. We've fallen into this too, but. All right. I think for many people, just finding the right software form, there's a lot of different software options out there where you can track the hours, approve the hours, give them vacation or sick time if you want a lot of those options that I think if you're looking for someone that's in that field of work and wants to do it. That's what my wife's done for her nanny. And I see her do it on her phone and approve the hours and the paycheck and, you know, the payroll taxes come out of her stuff. She's got to be ready for that. So. But that's just what. That's the way to do it. Right?

Okay. Do it right now. James in the studio said, mark, whenever you can, personalize it and tell a story that's really good in the podcast. Do you want to hear a quick story? It's a good one.

Okay.

Do you want to hear? Oh, I'll make it fast. Okay.

We'll see. Okay.

Oh, I'm. The jury's out.

I mean, we'll see if it's a good one. We'll see if it's a good one.

See if it's a good one. Okay. So I had a family member that was serving as a nanny, and she got around to doing her taxes in the spring. And she, the employer, the house, the family had given her a 1099. Now, I don't even know what the freak they put down for the ein on that 1099 because, yeah, it wasn't a business.

One of their businesses, something.

Who knows what their finag, you know, shenanigans they were pulling. But she got a 1099 and she thought, oh, I need to go do my taxes. So she started plugging them in on TurboTax. Reap, reap, reap. Schedule C, self employment tax. She owed, like, freaking five grand. And she was like, what the freak happened? I was just a nanny. I didn't know I owed five grand in taxes. Totally caught her off guard. There was no withholding. She was getting nailed for this 1099. She had no clue she was a 1099. They had just thrown this out to her. And nannies that don't go through a reputable nanny placement service can get blindsided by this. And families will take advantage of nannies all the time. So she gets this 1099 and she's getting taxed out the wazoo. So I look at it, I'm like, whoa, whoa. Were you and nanny for multiple families? No, just them. And this is all you did?

Yep.

Why didn't they give you a W2? I don't know. They just gave me a 1099. I said, Ah, this is going to be fun. So I wrote a nasty letter to this little family because they were just jerks to her. She had left them since the 1099 and they were just rude as all get out. Some people with nannies can do that. Matt's not like that. He's a good nanny manager. But anyway, they were. Yeah, they were terrible. And so I wrote them a nasty letter and I said, you owe back taxes, treble damages, you all this crap and I'm going to bill you for my time. You've got 48 hours to get your crap together, pay her taxes and give her a W2 or I'm freaking going balls out. You know, they immediately text me back, how dare you. We da, da, da, da da. I said call your accountant. Knock yourself out. You got 48 hours, you dumb. Sorry. Sorry for those kids in the car and apologize for that farmer. Swear words. They call me back next morning, totally contrite. Yeah, you're sorry. What do you want? They knew they were toast. They talked to their accountant, they talked to their lawyer. There is no way out of this. They were hosed. So totally got everything we wanted. The point being is this is a very well defined law and rule. Families that take advantage of nannies and don't do it right, you are up the crick if you screw it up. And so I threw down on them. They immediately complied and gave us what we wanted. So if you represent a nanny, if you know a nanny that's getting taken advantage of, you really do have the upper hand. For any of you listening that have household employees and you're trying to get around this rule, be careful. So which. Okay, so now that brings us to business owners that want to.

Yes, yes. This is probably the most common. You know, those of you that are solopreneurs that have independent contractors, those of you that are, you know, you make a small business with or you have some contractors and you have W2 employees. You know, I know we have a lot of real estate clients that are real estate agents or brokers that have other, you know, contractors that work for them and they might have some employees. So sometimes this you got A mixed bag here of who's involved in your life. But let's go over quick the common law rules of whether someone is an independent contractor versus an employee to you. And remember, before we even get into those, we've already talked about some differences in how they're paid, right? A W2 employee, you have workers comp. You're paying them work, you're paying workers comp. Insurance, you're doing fica, right? You're paying into Medicare and Social Security, you're paying 7.65% for that. They're paying some out of their check too. You got unemployment insurance, you got to pay as a W2. Now all these things for your contractors, you don't have to pay. So a lot of people try to be like, get around it and say, well, I'll just. They're just 1099 and they're just independent contractors when they really are employees. Because the small business owner is trying to get around having to do withholding, doing fica, having workers comp, paying for unemployment insurance, all those things. So. But like Mark said, at the front end of this, you don't have a choice. It's not like you get a pick and choose which one. You may be able to structure the work differently so that someone can qualify as an independent contractor versus an employee, but what someone's doing right now, they're either one or the other. You don't get a pick. So.

All right, now on this note, some additional resources for you in this show. Notes. I've got an article on 1099 rules for business owners in 2023. I also have a link to subcontractor versus employee, which is another article that goes through all the specific rules on this. And more and more states are getting extremely aggressive on different tests to impose employee status. This is a big lawsuit on Uber drivers. Luckily, Uber drivers won that one as far as I know. Currently they get to remain subs and independent, but for some reason California thinks they're doing people a favor making them employees. No, you're not. Being an employee sucks. And if some of you enjoy being an employee, you probably have a side hustle, don't you? Well, enjoy the ride because side hustle and side gigs, that's freaking what American Dream is all about. Now here's another issue. A lot of people go, well, okay, if I've got to issue someone a 1099, now there's different rules. If they're a corporation or an LLC tax to corporation, you don't have to do it. Do I issue it to their social. Do I issue it to their ein? If it's over $600, I got to do this. The deadline is January 31st. Again we've got some websites that are really good for this. I really like track1099.com. I think there's several1099.com type tax1099.com you get there and some they can issue 1099 for you. You just upload all your payees and how much. But here's what happens. I don't have their social, I don't have their ein. I don't know if they're a corporation or not. What do I do? Well, what you should have done is get what's called a W9. Whenever you hire someone in your business before you pay them, you say give me a W9. And that's where we get those separate the wheats from the tares. This is where people are like, well I just want you to pay me under the table. No, I want a tax write off. If you pay someone under the table, you don't get a write off. Oh I don't? No, you don't. So when they don't go on and give you a W9, you flipping the bird and say you're not getting paid. Well, I don't want to give you a W9. Well why don't you join freaking America? Because that's what you do when you're a contractor. I'm not going to help support you live off the grid. Not under my watch. So people need to pay their damn taxes and turn it into W9 to you. So you can give them the 1099 and they can pay their fair share of taxes. And if they don't want to get organized. Right. Or take advantage of tax strategies, then you don't hire them. Be tough. So get a W9 and sending the

1099 is for your benefit. Right. Like if the IRS you can try to put that expense on your on your tax return. A lot of accountants won't let you do it. Like you didn't 1099 them. The IRS can disallow that expense if you fail to issue the 1099. And not only that, they can charge you penalties. Yeah, failing to do it. So the IRS is all over this. They're wanting businesses. Again, individuals don't need to stress about this. But businesses paying contractors, you've got to be issuing the 1099 and the W9. That should just be part of your process. We've got a new vendor, we've got a new contractor we're paying. Grab their W9. You're going to need it because you're going to this time of year, every year, you know you're going to be needing it to be submitting these 1099s to, to make sure you can expense these and write these expenses off. Now, we skipped over difference between independent contractor who gets a 1099 versus employee who gets a W2.

Okay.

The difference is there's a common law rule, and this is what the IRS goes by. Now, like I said earlier, like California and a few states have a little different way they treat this. But this is the general rule is there's three parts in this test. And it all gets into the degree of control and independence you have over them. If you have more control over this person and what they do when they come to work, what materials they use, what supplies they have, what equipment they use, their schedule, that's more employee because you have control over them. If they can come and get the job done whenever they have their own supplies and materials, they're not using your place of work as the place where they're doing their business. Okay. Then they're more in the independent contractor side of things. So they're looking at the behavior, the financial things, who's paying for the materials and expenses and equipment and supplies, and then the type of relationship. So the more control you have, the more you're paying for all the equipment, the supplies and materials, the more W2 category they are, the more they're doing their own thing, particularly if they're serving other customers and they're in the business of that, the easier it is for them to be independent contractors. So those are the factors to be thinking about.

I love it. Thank you, Matt, for explaining those differences. And as for the penalties, the penalty per 1099 for not issuing one starts at $50 if you're more than 30 days. If you're less than 30 days late. So January 31st is the deadline you submit them after January 31st up to March 1st. That's a $50 penalty per 1099. It goes up to $550 per 1099. One side note, I want to give you another example. I had a Realtor call me is probably eight years ago or nine years ago, a Realtor had been giving out big gifts to clients after closing on a house. Like they might. She might give them a. Stuff over $600. Like it could be an appliance. It was a stove. Stove, a new stove, a fridge with a compartment that Keeps things cool. And that was a nice feature.

You could put your Soda.

Soda, yeah. So Tommy boy reference. And so she had kicked, but she didn't do any 1099s. Didn't issue in 1099, but wrote all this off. And these were people that should have received a 1099. She wrote it off as gifts and all these other payments and whatever. She got audited and all heck broke loose. The penalties for not issuing 1099s was over $30,000. And I called the IRS and was like, come on, you got to work with us on this. Please, come on. Now. She had ignored all the notices, ignored all the ph. The IRS doesn't phone call you on the phone. But she ignored all the notices. And it had gotten to the point where the IRS was pissed. So I had to talk them off the cliff. We issued 1099s. We got everything under control and we got the penalty, you know, under five grand. And. But she learned a hard lesson. And I've tried to tell that story wherever I can. If whenever you get a notice from the irs, immediately respond and get help. That's point number one. Because if you let it get worse, it's not going away and it will get worse. But Then also this 1099 penalty just added up and a lot of people think, well, it's not going to happen to me. Well, okay, so deal with it. Well, Mr. Sorensen, what do you think? Anything else we want to talk about here?

Well, I think for the W2s, that's the same time period right now where you got to do them for those. Obviously you have the employees, W2S. Don't, don't forget, there's a lot of stuff that goes in the W2 if you're self employed, your own W2, did you have a solo 401k you made contributions to, did you have health insurance? You paid through the year four as being self employed. These are things that need to be on your individual W2 for any of your employees. Of course, you need to be worrying about the same, except the health insurance. But any retirement plan contributions, that stuff needs to be indicated on the W2 as well. So just a little tip on getting your W2s done for yourself or your employees.

Well, and I'm just working here on our article on the 1099. Swiss is down in the notes. So everybody make sure you get over there, check that out, and grateful to be here with you. Owning a small business is a wonderful thing. Being able to make extra income, build wealth, and take advantage of tax write offs. But to play the game, you got to play by the rules. And don't hate the player. We're just telling you the rules. And.

Yeah, and hate the game. But I'll say even better this way. Know the game, okay? Know the game. Don't hate the game. Know the game, okay? Because the tax rules can be put into your benefit. Now this one in on the 1099, independent contractor. You gotta play ball, so to speak. You gotta play by the rules so you can get the deductions and also to make sure you're not getting penalties down the road. But remember, this is also about protecting yourself legally. Like this classification of independent contractor employee has some legal considerations there, so make sure you're smart on those things too. So you're protecting yourself and minimizing risks for something that could happen in your business.

Love it. Well, we'll see you all next week. Keep living the dream. Don't give up. And I think next week we're going to do open forum. So make sure all of you submit your questions at main street business podcast.com mainstreetbusiness.com mainstream business podcast.com any of those

will be here businesspodcast.com yeah.

Okay. Oh, geez. All right, man.

That's the one. That's the one. Freaking. A right spot, you know?

Yeah, you gotta send them the right spot. So submit your questions. We'll do our best to field as many as we can next week. And thank you so much for listening. And have a blessed January. Get those New Year's resolutions done. Start living them. Quit screwing around.