Tax season is often the worst time of the year for most people. You have to scramble around trying to figure out stuff like your gross income and tax deductions, and also try to sort through tons of confusing tax forms.
When it comes to who is an independent contractor, the IRS states that “the general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done.”
Put another way, an independent contractor is somebody who gets paid on a “project by project” basis, whereby the employer pays to have a service or good delivered, but they only have a say in the final result and not how to process is carried out.
The first major difference is that in the case of independent contractors, the customer paying you does not deduct any money on their end for your taxes.