More on Section 199A and Worker Classification (**Threaded Tweet Alert!)

Shu-Yi Oei

Last Friday, Diane and I posted a new paper called “Is New Code Section 199A Really Going to Turn Us All into Independent Contractors?” on SSRN. This was something that started as a blog post but then grew too long and so became a short paper. We plan to develop the ideas in it more robustly in future work.

On Saturday, I made one of those goofy academic tweet threads summarizing the paper, and then it occurred to me that I really liked my goofy tweet thread! Therefore, I’ve taken the liberty of posting the tweets here for the marginal reader who is just interested enough in the topic to read the tweets but possibly not interested enough to read the actual paper.

Diane and I look forward to continuing conversation on this.

The question that drove us was extent to which Sec. 199A incentivizes shifts to independent contractor classification. Some key points: (1) It’s not just about 199A itself. We think that once tax interacts with non-tax considerations, the picture becomes more complicated…2/?

— Shuyi Oei (@ShuyiOei) January 13, 2018

(3) It’s unclear how much incremental advantage the Sec. 199A "carrot" gives firms in keeping workers quiet when they are have been classified as ICs. Firms already have non-tax ways to mute worker challenges and, moreover, have used them. 4/?

— Shuyi Oei (@ShuyiOei) January 13, 2018

In short, an important interdisciplinary conversation that should be taking place across legal fields. Answer will likely depend not just on Sec. 199A itself. 6/end.

— Shuyi Oei (@ShuyiOei) January 13, 2018