Water Well Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/543740
Y WH C T GE Y P CERTIF ? FIED Sales P Ce CSP rofessional rtied ® ® 800 551.7379 • www. protecting the resour Advance your career, .NGWA.org/Certificati rce. , your self-esteem, and on • 614 898.7791 d your paycheck while e The amendment required the study and small business review be completed before a new rule could be promulgated. It was adopted in the Senate, and the bill will now go to the Senate floor for con- sideration. A similar amendment has not yet emerged in a House of Representa- tives version of the bill. NGWA filed comments on the proposal silica rulemaking in 2014, highlighting key differences between water well drilling and blast hole or quarry drilling. Because of the number of ground- water industry firms that are small busi- nesses, the amendment is a favorable development in ensuring small business owners have been adequately consid- ered in drafting a final rule on silica. Any new regulations on silica would likely apply to water well contractors to some extent due to the amount of silica used and created during the drilling process. Employee Misclassification Is Subject of Labor Department Crackdown The U.S. Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, and state workforce agencies are pursuing busi- nesses considered to be misclassifying employees as independent contractors, according to an article in Forbes. The construction industry is listed as an industry in the crosshairs of these regulatory agencies. The Labor Department has a Mis- classification Initiative website and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with 21 state workforce agencies in order to locate and prevent misclassification. In New York, independent contractor misclassification is significant, with the state's labor department showing in 2014 it completed more than 12,000 au- dits and investigations. The audits led to assessments of more than $40 million in unpaid unemployment contributions. Massachusetts also reportedly au- dited more than 18,000 businesses in its last reported year and recovered $15.6 million from companies found to have misclassified independent contractors. The IRS has a Questionable Employ- ment Tax Program and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Labor Department and 37 state agencies to identify "employment tax schemes and illegal [tax] practices." There are also more than a dozen states that have multiagency misclassifi- cation task forces aimed at the coordi- nated enforcement of state wage and hour and unemployment tax laws. The Department of Labor has pub- lished on its website a detailed six-part "economic realities" test for determin- ing if a worker is an employee or an in- dependent contractor. Similarly, the IRS has publicized on its website the so- called common law "20 factor" test it uses to determine independent contrac- tor status. This test has been reformu- lated into three comprehensive factors, each with many subparts. Not surpris- ingly, the new standard includes virtu- ally all of the 20 factors in the earlier IRS test. NEWS continues on page 16 WWJ August 2015 15 Twitter @WaterWellJournl