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favorable tax treatment only if TLC were the employer of such
driver-employees.
With respect to petitioner’s argument that the Court in
Transport Labor I “restated factors used in Beech Trucking in a
materially different way”, petitioner also asserts that in Beech
Trucking Co. the Court found that if a relationship31 between a
truck driver and a trucking company is “of indefinite duration”,
such trucking company is the employer of such truck driver. In
this connection, petitioner contends:
Here, substantial evidence proved that the
employment relationship between the trucking companies
and the drivers existed before TLC’s involvement with
the trucking companies. The Lease Agreement had no
effect on the duration of the drivers’ relationship
with the trucking companies because the drivers
continued to work in the business of the trucking
companies. * * *
On the record before us, we reject petitioner’s assertion.
31As the Court indicated in Transport Labor I, petitioner
did not explain on brief, and does not explain in its motion for
reconsideration, what it means when it argues that the “relation-
ship” between a trucking company and its drivers was of indefi-
nite duration. Transp. Labor Contract/Leasing, Inc. & Subs. v.
Commissioner, 123 T.C. at 195. We presume that petitioner means
that, after a trucking company entered into an exclusive lease
agreement with TLC, each driver who previously worked for such
trucking company continued to perform services for such company
pursuant to the employment arrangement with such company that
existed before it entered into such lease agreement with TLC. We
reject any such argument. The parties stipulated, and the Court
in Transport Labor I found, that, when each trucking company
entered into an exclusive lease agreement with TLC, such trucking
company terminated the employment arrangement that it had with
all of the truck drivers who previously worked for such trucking
company. Id. at 159.
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