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Old 09-10-2015, 01:17 PM
noonereal noonereal is offline
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people working part time, what is the law?

A friend of mine is working part time, $10 an hour.

It's a healthcare service, take care of folks in their homes.

The healthcare service will call and often ask that the employee work for 1 hour. Sometimes 1 1/2, sometimes two.

This generally is about a 5-10 mile drive one way.

Pretty much all the employees do it.

I flipped out.

Let's say you are driving 10 miles each way that is 20 miles. The IRS acknowledges that the cost of a car is 57.5cents a mile.

So if you are working one hour, 10 miles away, it cost you 11.50 to get to work and home. For a $10 pay check. Which, of course, taxes will be taken from.

WTF?

Is this legal?

Now, on top of this, they will ask you to go from one job to another during the course of the day. One hour at one address, they drive to another address for a 3 hour gig. They do not pay your miles between jobs, which is not legal as far as I can tell and they do not pay for the drive time. This I know to not be legal.

Honest, I am between anger and heartbreak for folks doing this.

Seems most never realize it cost them money to get to and from work and just as few (if any realize) that an employer cannot "not pay you" for drive time once you have reported for work if they request you change locations.



Any thoughts or insights into this would be appreciated.


For example, although we all know an employer is not obligated for your expenses driving to and from work, what are is obligations to you if he sends you to another location in regards to then driving home. Must he also compensate you for any extra miles to get home than it took you to get to work?

Seems like they should.

Last edited by noonereal; 09-10-2015 at 01:20 PM.
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Old 09-10-2015, 01:21 PM
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catswiththum catswiththum is offline
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Here you go:

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/ch04.html
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Old 09-10-2015, 01:41 PM
noonereal noonereal is offline
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btw, this job requires a state mandated training course for certification first which the employee has to pay. It's a one week course costing north of $500.

You guessed it, the same healthcare provider you work for teaches the course and makes the money off your training!
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Old 09-10-2015, 01:42 PM
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this is if you are self employed.
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Old 09-10-2015, 01:44 PM
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Wonderful. That says you can deduct all that car travel from your taxable income. As if a person working part-time on-call for $10 an hour is going to have any taxable income after the standard exemptions and deductions anyway.

The question is, does the employer legally owe wages for the person's time, from out the door to back to?
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Old 09-10-2015, 01:54 PM
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Yep - not good at all. To get around that I incorporated myself and am employed as a 1099 subcontractor for the company.

My gasoline bill runs between 300.00 - 400.00 a month; I need all the help I can get.
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Old 09-10-2015, 01:56 PM
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OK, this fact sheet definitely says the time for travel from worksite A to worksite B must be paid. Some things are not clear though.

Ordinary commuting time from home to a fixed workplace is not paid. But travel time to a temporary work place may be paid. This seems to describe the situation when one is dispatched to client homes ad-hoc, as described here. But I'd like to see that in black and white.

Another likely complication is that the employeer may claim (spuriously) that the employees are 'indepentent contractors,' in an attempt to evade the usual wage and hour rules.

Fact sheet: http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs22.htm
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Last edited by donquixote99; 09-10-2015 at 02:10 PM.
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Old 09-10-2015, 02:00 PM
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icenine icenine is offline
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Home heath care employees receive very low pay and suffer many abuses.
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Old 09-10-2015, 02:00 PM
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Originally Posted by donquixote99 View Post

Another likely complication is that the employeer may claim (spuriously) that the employees are 'indepentent contractors,' in an attempt to evade the usual wage and hour rules.

Fact sheet: http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs22.htm
Yes, there is a lot of 1099 fraud going on. In my particular case it is all on the level. The home offices are in North Carolina, I run the show down here from my home office, do the books, billing, hiring, etc.

I've been around the block with the IRS a few times - I don't want to do it again.
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Old 09-10-2015, 02:07 PM
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Home heath care employees receive very low pay and suffer many abuses.
They are very replaceable and have no bargaining power. Firing and blacklisting will result if a person succeeds in getting the federal wage and hour guys to investigate, which is damned unlikely anyway. Ditto the slightest whiff of a hint of 'organizing.'
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