RE: Should I furnish computer?

[Ned Allison <ned-a -at- home -dot- com>]

Bob:

To go along with this, there is a legal issue set that is being 
avoided.  If you are providing your own equipment to work you are in 
essence becoming an independent contractor under the law.  As such the 
company is not legally bound to pay benefits, may require you to have 
insurance, may require right of inspection, and if you are under a security 
agreement may require the machine you are working on be surrendered or 
wiped.  You could be liable for costs and damages to your employer, and 
liable for taxes to the IRS, STATE and LOCAL up to and including self 
employment tax, which carries a pretax payment with penalties and interest, 
about which the IRS is very unlikely to forego if a "misunderstanding" has 
occurred.  As an independent you are responsible for your own time and 
tools unless specified under contract and could be left holding the bag on 
all sorts of things.  If tragedy should happen and the company go into 
bankruptcy, the courts would be left to decide your status and what you 
owe, and your personal property could be attached as asset or forfeit, and 
the court could invalidate your working relationship and force you to repay 
the company for anything it deemed improper.  You could also be held liable 
for any damage done the company's computer network which could be argued 
came from your equipment or the attached line!  there are a lot of issues 
here, and I would not approach them without legal advice!

Is the company wants to cut costs, then they could easily provide a PC and 
the DSL line to replace the SUN WS and IDSN line.  After all you are also 
saving them the need to supply an office and facilities at one of their 
sites, which is a cost to them.  This is not a one way issue, and a change 
to the arrangement is not to be approached lightly.

Ned

{Edits made to the below to meet list requirements, please forgive any 
wording changes caused by this, I felt the information raised was needed 
and fought hard to preserve the needed material.  Ned}

At 04:37 PM 6/4/01 -0500, you wrote: