| > It will probably come as a surprise to you (it did me several years ago), that it’s not simply up to you and the company hiring you if you are considered a freelancer. Where do you draw the line? Let's say you hire someone for 3 hours to help you out for a specific task. A "I would like X done with Y" type of scenario. Are they now considered an employee? What if you asked someone to do a code review for 5 hours where you precisely told them what to do, but it's on them to determine the state of the code? Also an employee? Does your answer change if you asked them to do this 1 hour a week for a year? Here's another example. A company hired me to do X. This ended up being a ~100 hour project. They gave me a checklist of deliverables and a pretty decent break down on how to implement everything. They let me choose the tech (but had suggestions on what to use) and how the application functioned was defined by them. Am I an employee and if so, what if I worked 20 hours a week until it was done vs 50 hours a week -- does that change anything? Scenarios like the above are really common in the freelance world. You get a super wide range of work thrown at you (as you know). I've talked with a number of accountants over the years and always told them everything I've been up to. I was never once recommended to classify myself as a W2 employee, or be on the hook for hiring a W2 employee for short term contract work that I provided someone. It's always been 1099s in and 1099s out. |
Usually in your situation you will have your own computer, your own workspace (except for meetings with the client), and deliver things based on a predefined scope (or predefined set of expectations). That's good enough to make you a freelancer.
On the other hand, if the company told you to use their laptop, show up in their office, work using their methods—effectively manage how you work... that becomes W2 territory.
Taking a step back, you're respecting the spirit of things. The company has a need, you have a solution, y'all have a transaction. On the other hand, if they were to integrate you as part of a team, within their processes, that's a W2.
Of course in practice there's a third way that is common: large company A makes use of an intermediary contracting company B that they can pay as needed[0], and the contractors are W2 salaried of B, while A maintains all their flexibility.
[0] Generally for all the crappy work that they don't want to do themselves. If you find yourself working for B, make it a learning experience and a personal goal to move beyond it.