Please investigate thoroughly with your accountant, but to the best of my knowledge, it's not the correct way to go. It's cheaper, yes, but I believe the stipulations like independent contractors needing to carry their own liability insurance, keeps it from being the correct way. There were some very thourgh threads on here, but I can't locate them at this moment.
A couple key points that make actors employees and not allowed to be classified as independent contractors, is usually the fact that you control their schedule, and provide them with the "tools'' to complete their job.
State laws vary. There is no standard in the federal courts last time I researched it. I could do independent contractors in one city with no licensing requirement. The city next to it, I had to have each independent contractor have their own biz license....so I had to do something else for them.
You didnt set schedules for them .. you had jobs and the time slots the jobs could be done in. They picked . Never were they called employees. Never were they fired...their service was no longer needed. They signed contracts fitting the needs required by law at that time for that city/state.
If you are paying your actors or staff , try this set up something with a local temp agencies and hire them through that and that way all you do is pay one person and they handle all the other paperwork like taxes and insurance and if something happens to them they are covered and you just pay a small fee to get all that aggravation to some one else to deal with so you will have more time to deal with your haunt.
Most agencies lie to the general public about how much they take of their "earnings"
However after dealing with 2 locally myself, I have discovered they take more than what they tell people. Generally it's $2/hr per person. ($1 is what they tell people)
But this may be rare as I can only attest for the two I've dealt with.
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