Independent contractors are required to be 'self-directing'. That precludes exercising responsible charge over them. Pick your poison, IRS or BOR.?ÿ
As an experiment, I've offered some ALTA quotes at 1/3 what I would normally quote.?ÿ Nope, haven't got one yet.?ÿ So good luck to the "winner."
Did the RFP specify all table A items except for contours or is that what you proposed??ÿ There are surveyors when asked for an ALTA survey, will send a proposal with no table A. That's how one surveyor can be $5000 different than another - different scope of services.
I quit responding to bid requests a long time ago. If the first (or only) question is price they aren't the tyoe of client I want. The lone exception is hourly rate construction work. On those jobs you get an explanation of my rate, proceeded by a disclaimer for injuries sustained when you pass out from shock.
Stop apologizing for making money.?ÿ
Independent contractors are required to be 'self-directing'. That precludes exercising responsible charge over them. Pick your poison, IRS or BOR.?ÿ
Wouldn't there be some contractual law to bind ??ÿ If you (hypothetical) entered into an agreement for a?ÿ (TSPS) category 1A boundary survey, with a contractor, wouldn't they be contractually bound to provide the minimum results ??ÿ
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The problem with that approach is, you cannot contract to supply a professional service if you aren't a professional. The BOR will hammer the sub and possibly the rubber-stamp as well.
The only way to avoid trouble would be a PLS crew chief. Not much incentive for the PLS in this economy.
The problem with that approach is, you cannot contract to supply a professional service if you aren't a professional. The BOR will hammer the sub and possibly the rubber-stamp as well.
The only way to avoid trouble would be a PLS crew chief. Not much incentive for the PLS in this economy.
I don't feel you're contracting to supply a professional service, per se, as it isn't, in the strictest definition, being offered to the public but, as a necessary integral to being able to state 'This survey was conducted under my direct supervision ..' and as much as any other service that facilitates the sufficiency of that statement (ie) brush cutting, drone activities, drafting, all which get contracted out, once you apply your seal and signature, It then becomes a professional service.
Deciding where a property boundary should be monumented qualifies as a professional service.?ÿ Period.
That simply pushes you back in front of the IRS. You are either self-directing as a contractor or under direction as an employee. One way or the other it's going to hurt..
You are correct. There is no secret third way. That third way only exists in mind of people that attempt to justify their unprofessional decisions.
How about this...you can get drafting done overseas for about a third of the price of having it done in house. Does that process fall under the same rules? Now, you can certainly provide direction and whatever you like to the people in the Philippines or India, and you get access to the final product to check and tweak and finally sign.
Never gone this route, but I think drafting is different than field work, simply because you could let someone take the data and produce a drawing, and as long as you did due diligence, the end result is the same. I suppose you could sub out your drafting in the USA...but the idea of providing control and direction and supervision to all the stages has always been a big deal for me.
But there are a few very prolific companies around here making their business work with offshoring their drafting.
Best to hire them through a temp service and take the 50% hit.
Here is link to Texas's take https://www.twc.texas.gov/news/efte/ics_contract_labor.html . The IRS may be a little more stringent.
I would agree that field work is a different animal. If the PLS is not directing the gathering of evidence things will get ugly.
The 'off-shore' concept brings in an entirely different portion of the alphabet soup. Several agencies are getting involved where seemingly harmless data ends up on foreign servers. Then you have the shifting sands of trade agreements, taxes and international law. Oh, and how will your E&O folks feel about it?
Yes, all of that, and we never went offshore. The big lure isn't the idea of the product being cheaper to create. It is the scalability of offshoring that makes it so appealing. If you run a mix of topo and altas and construction and such, then you might need a drafter for very little one month, and need 3 or 4 the next month. This creates problems for hitting deliverable dates.
And BTW, those using this have universally ugly and horrific maps...
I think you can have contract crews that fit both but you have to be careful. I used to work for a large engineering firm that would on occasion hire a contract crew to fill in the gaps. These crews supplied their own equipment, carried insurance, paid taxes and provide services to others and thus met the definition of a contractor. Our project surveyor's outlined the contract crew on what was to be accomplished, delineated what standards must be followed and debriefed regularly just as we did with our crews. In most cases, the PC on the crew was licensed but that is kind of a red herring since they were not stamping anything and it is the stamping LS that needs to be in responsible charge.
As an other example, I spent last year working as a sub on a large / remote project with three (3) other firms. While the prime was responsible for the boundary resolutions, I coordinated the field crews for all of the companies, including the prime's. While I am licensed in both states the project covered, the prime directed me on what we needed to collect and established the parameters. I decided who, where and when the field crews attacked the prime's needs.
My point in the previous post was that you can not just hire a person off the street and call them a contractor to avoid taxation, insurance and other regulations. You can hire a legitimate firm to work for you if you manage them well.
That simply pushes you back in front of the IRS. You are either self-directing as a contractor or under direction as an employee. One way or the other it's going to hurt..
As a business proprietor you might subscribe to that out of an abundance of caution. It's a binary set of choices that when unpackaged some, reveal that crew chiefs exercise self-direction?ÿas a matter of course on a myriad of issues in the daily routine. To state they don't exercise self-direction on material and critical issues, while salaried or hourly, just isn't the reality on the ground.
Though some PLSs do personally direct the crew.