Bret Williams
Forum Replies Created
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Just wanted to make sure you knew that every time you see 7.5% taken out for FICA/Social Security that is your half. The employer pays the government the other half. It equals the exact same amount as social security/self employment tax. It doesn’t sound like you understand that. And of course they have to work that into their cost of doing business. If they were paying you $100/hr as an employee/W-2, they were also paying the government another $7.50 per hour.
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In a round about way you can do a “find used” of a particular sequence and create a collection based on items from that so you can keyword them in batches.
For example it works great if someone hands you a project where the media was organized into timelines instead of bins/keywords. It happens. You can then find all the used media in a timeline and apply a keyword in one shot to all that media.
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I thought it also didn’t edit down stuff like h264.
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First- awesome that you’re going to go shoot some baseball! Closest thing I ever had was my first job out of college. I worked at GA Tech Athletic Association shooting and editing all their sports highlight videos and satellite feeds. 1993-1995. Nomar Garciaparra was there. Such a nice guy the few times I met him. Good times. Not much pay, but good times.
I’m glad you did your diligence and decided which company was the better deal. But comparing what one company will pay vs. what another will pay just determined that FOX paid better than ESPN. Not that getting paid via 1099 vs. W-2 is worse. I worked at 3 salaried jobs before I went freelance. I get paid twice as much, have a ton more free time, can write off my computers, phone, a portion of my utilities, etc. Insurance cost money sure. As does self employment tax. But I’m still way ahead. But I’m sure there’s a salaried job out there that’s a much better deal. I’m just not qualified for it!
Go have fun.
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All I’m saying, is when an employer offers you a job at a certain salary, the hidden 7% that they have to put in is part of their determination of what they can afford to pay. They would be pretty bad business people if they did not. When you hire somebody at $100,000 a year, as an employer you’re hiring someone at $107,500 a year. That’s what their cost is to you. Plus any other benefits of course. Likely, they have a number in mind. For example, they said to themselves, “gosh, we spent $120,000 on freelancers last year. Maybe we should just hire someone.” They then have to figure out what that someone would cost. They might budget … 100k salary, +7k SS match, plus 15k in benefits and insurance and other incidentals. Wait, that’s going to cost us 122k a year! So ok, we can afford 98k a year for an employee.
Whether you decide to be an independent contractor over an employee involves the same calculations, doesn’t it? What kind of an hourly wage will the market bear? How much do you expect to work? What does disability insurance, taxes and expenses cost? What will your take home pay be vs. an employee? And so on. You may decide it’s a wash, but an employee is there 50 weeks a year for the same take home pay as a contractor. What could you do with that free time? There’s a lot of good stuff on Netflix.
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You’re paying both parts in either case. That 7% is part of the allocation to your salary. Part of the overall cost that is you. Your benefits, your ss matching, and your salary. They can’t just create that money from thin air. I’d prefer to know what my government is taking from me vs. having it hidden. So many people don’t even know that their employer matches the SS tax. And that’s the way our gov would like to keep it.
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I’d rather be liquid. Seriously. Have you looked at the penalties and even the interest rates for NOT paying your quarterlies? It took me a few years of freelance before I realized that if you don’t pay your quarterlies the penalties and interest, etc. depending on how much you made and all that are hundreds of dollars,(perhaps $350 or so) not thousands. My wife and I are both freelance, and come tax day, sometimes we have a bill of 20k. But we know it’s coming and WE stash that money away. And if we need it, we dip into it. And WE can make interest off it all year which would equate to more than the government charges in interest and penalties. They are the cheapest loan you’ll ever find. Well, lately rates have been low, but historically cheaper than a loan and certainly you’re better off than if you had an emergency and had to put something on your Credit Card! So if we were to send $4k or $5k to uncle sam every quarter that’s like operating without a contingency. We pay our bills on time. We pay our contractors on time. We don’t give the Federal government a free loan.
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[Andrew Kimery] “I mainly cut or AE on doc/unscripted movies and TV shows and there’s no way I’d qualify as an IC on anything I’ve worked on (save for some small side projects). When I get brought onto a show I’m using their NLE, their shared storage, getting paid on a recurring basis and answering to producers, post supervisors, maybe even a lead editor too. IC I ain’t and I’m not too keen on paying the taxes the company I’m working for is supposed to be paying. ;)”
I agree with everything you said. Except this last one. You certainly don’t think you’ll make more money from a company just because you’d be an employee and now the company is paying the taxes? Companies basically don’t pay taxes. I mean they do, but it HAS to get rolled into the cost of doing business. You get paid $50, $75, $100/hr as an IC or whatever for many calculated reasons. Essentially it’s what the market has deemed it will bear. If you decide you’d rather be an employee, the company isn’t going to be paying that same rate PLUS SS, medicare and health benefits. You’d likely be getting half your IC rate or less. It’s all the same to the company. When they determine a salary they’re adding up everything you’re going to cost. When they determine IC rates it’s the same thing. They’ll pay more because they don’t have to pay the taxes and benefits. And after 18 years as a 1099 contractor working out of my house and at facilities on their systems, I wouldn’t change a thing. I know what the tax rates are. I know I how to buy disability insurance, etc. I’ve had salary jobs. They were great jobs, but twice the work for half the pay. Of course I had health insurance benefits and they paid the extra hidden 7.5% of SS/fica and that amounted to something so lets say twice the work at 3/4 the pay.
I also enjoy the job security of being an IC. When the economy slows down work for an IC slows down. But when the economy slows for an employee, they often just get laid off!
There have been some issues around here as I mentioned where companies have been forced to make sure their ICs go through an agency, especially if they want to treat them more like temp employees and just have them come in. The agency actually who the company is hiring. They provide optional benefits and do any withholding, etc. But that’s rare. Generally because someone was unhappy and wanted to be an employee and brought something to the attention of the IRS. But even then its a very grey area still. It was my understanding that the IRS has realized their definition, specifically about using others equipment, is a bit extreme / outdated. A company can certainly have employees and have them come in and work on the companies equipment. It’s really when they meet all the criteria of an employee that the companies get in trouble. Having them keep regular hours with no project assigned is the big flag. The whole “just come in we’ll find something for you to do” kinda situation. But as long as you have a billable project with a reasonable start and end, I’d say you’re a contractor even if you’re working on someone else’s NLE. If not, there are a huge number of fortune 500 companies in this town that are up the creek!
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FCP legacy markers were extendable.
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I thought Al Gore invented non-linear eding?