Worker misclassification is a growing epidemic in the United States, resulting in staggering losses of at least $1.6 billion in Social Security taxes alone. Over the last decade, the U.S. Departments of Labor and Treasury have steadily increased audit activity related to identification and penalization for misclassification of U.S. workers. To date, the DOL has hired hundreds of new wage and hour investigators to address the problem, and the IRS frequently cautions employers of the Agency’s robust misclassification audit activities. Add health care reform to this already charged environment, and federal and state agencies are supported by a regulatory mandate that promotes the charge against worker misclassification.

During this session, program participants will: 

• Review the regulatory and organizational rationales for appropriate worker classification;

• Learn how worker misclassification impacts implementation of ACA mandates;

• Learn current standards for employee and independent contractor classification;

• Learn to identify potential worker misclassification across the geographic and functional lines of an organization;

• Receive specific guidance on techniques for voluntarily correcting misclassifications prior to an agency audit;

• Receive specific guidance on handling a federal or state-level worker misclassification audit;

• Receive specific guidance for managing parallel audits (e.g., federal/federal; federal/state) and subsequently-initiated state-level audits; and

• Learn the organizational costs of compliance versus non-compliance with federal and state worker classification standards.