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For employment tax3 purposes, petitioner treated all the
drivers as independent contractors, rather than as employees, and
issued every driver a Form 1099 instead of a Form W-2. Most of
the drivers working for petitioner considered themselves to be
employees, but some considered themselves independent
contractors.
OPINION
Issue 1. Whether the Drivers Are Employees or Independent
Contractors
Respondent determined that for employment tax purposes the
drivers of petitioner's trucks during 1995 were employees, not
independent contractors. Relying mainly on his own previous
experiences as a driver and his interpretation of a State
multiple-factor test, petitioner asserts that the drivers of his
trucks were independent contractors.
Respondent's determinations of fact are presumptively
correct, and petitioner bears the burden of proving by a
preponderance of the evidence that those determinations are
erroneous. See Rule 142(a); Welch v. Helvering, 290 U.S. 111,
115 (1933); Day v. Commissioner, 975 F.2d 534, 537 (8th Cir.
1992), affg. in part and revg. in part T.C. Memo. 1991-140.
3For convenience, we use the term "employment tax" to refer
to taxes under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA),
secs. 3101-3125, the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA), secs.
3301-3311, and income tax withholdings, secs. 3401-3406 and 3509.
See Henry Randolph Consulting v. Commissioner, 112 T.C. 1, 1 n.1
(1999).
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