Was it too much?

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by TxUmp

You may be facing legal problems by having your games paid by your association. We had legal advice that such a procedure would open us up to tax problems.

It would make it more likely that you would be considered employees of the association, and not independent contractors. (It's just one of several criteria used to help decide the employment status.) This affects worker's comp claims, and tax withholdings.

[jicecone]

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

It would make it more likely that you would be considered employees of the association, and not independent contractors. (It's just one of several criteria used to help decide the employment status.) This affects worker's comp claims, and tax withholdings.

Your right Bob, and each state has different interpretations of this from what I have found out. I say this because I have been involved with associations in two different states and found it to be different in each, and different for different associations within each state.

[Tim C]

The State of Oregon Employment Department is currently outlining legislation that officials in the State of Oregon ARE employees of the Association.

Currently Oregon has viewed sport officials are "independent subcontractors" and have allowed them to be exempt from workmen's compensation fees.

The new ruling will cause multiple challenges:

1) All State Association's will be charged payroll tax.

2) All Officials will be taxed for workman's compensation, state withholding taxes and any other taxes that a local government has voted into place.

3) All officials game checks will also be taxed for the state unemployment claims fund.

At the legislative level we have been fighting this change for two years.

It appears that we are losing.

Why is this happening?

A single basketball referee in Southwestern Oregon lost his job. When he went for unemployment benefits he lists "Sports Official" as a source of income. This set off an alarm within the employment system.

Is there another way to end this?

Sure, we could go back to the way we did it for decades. We are paid now from out local association. All schools send in their fees for the entire year before a pitch is thrown. We have about 5 paydays spread out over the school season. Prior to this system we got a check from the school for each game.

The name on the check was usually: Pay to Salem Baseball Officials Association.

We all would find "special places" that would cash the check when we signed:

"Pay to Salem Baseball Officials Association."

Our school system has noted that they would be required to write as many as 500,000 checks to cover all games fees at all schools levels and they will refuse to add this cost to their accounting budgets.

The State of Oregon has noted that since we receive 1099's at year's end from our "employer" we are, in fact, employees.

Regards,

[jicecone]

I guess the answer is for each association to hire an accountant, add another $15.00 per game on their fees, increase the school sports budgets which increases the tax levy, which pisses off the locales, who again blame the sports officials for srewing things up.

Then we will have to bid for the contracts and low bidder will send the best officials to the games (SURE) and we will then be subject to terrible officiating comments and the cycle continues.

And there are still officials that say they do this for fun ???????????????

Crazy world

[Publius]

Good for the State of Oregon.

Associations nationwide have long been able to have their cake and eat it, too. Dictating not just who works, but whether they even have an opportunity to work (by controlling who gets offered games) flies in the face of "independent contractor".

Dictating what uniforms one wears, how soon before game time one must show up, what mechanics one must use, mandatory attendance at training sessions; all are antithetical to the concept of "independence".

I'm not saying those requirements are bad, only that they go a long way toward making you an employer if you penalize people (by denying them work) for not obeying them. If you want to control officials, you should be prepared for the administrative burden that goes with that control. If you don't want the burden, then you should live with true "independent contractors".

Independent contractors aren't independent if they have to depend on the benevolence and, sometimes, capriciousness of a broker in order to work.

[jicecone]

Originally Posted by Publius

Good for the State of Oregon.

Associations nationwide have long been able to have their cake and eat it, too. Dictating not just who works, but whether they even have an opportunity to work (by controlling who gets offered games) flies in the face of "independent contractor".

Dictating what uniforms one wears, how soon before game time one must show up, what mechanics one must use, mandatory attendance at training sessions; all are antithetical to the concept of "independence".

I'm not saying those requirements are bad, only that they go a long way toward making you an employer if you penalize people (by denying them work) for not obeying them. If you want to control officials, you should be prepared for the administrative burden that goes with that control. If you don't want the burden, then you should live with true "independent contractors".

Independent contractors aren't independent if they have to depend on the benevolence and, sometimes, capriciousness of a broker in order to work.

I can't tell you how things are where you work but in the associations I belonged to if you did not like what was going on you had the right to vote those people out and do it another way.

But I have also seen some very shady things done also and I have seen some people that never want to do ANYTHING than complain about what everyone else does.

They call it America my friend.

[PeteBooth]

Tee is your association going to lose officials over this new legislation?

Also, will the Fees increase to compensate the officials for the increase in tax

In other words lets assume a $50.00 (under the table) Game Fee. With the new legislation this $50.00 will now be taxed, so will the FEES increase so that the net return to the official remains the same.

Thanks

Pete Booth