Hiring, rewarding, motivating and retaining artisans, indeed, while ensuring that you are an employer of choice, is quite a task. It is all the more difficult when you are in start-up mode and cash-strapped, as this necessarily limits your choices. Then, there is the bewildering array of state and federal tax legislation to comply with. Some of the issues this paper addresses includes:
- is your artisan an employee or a contractor? This will have implications for, at the very least,income tax, FBT, SGC, payroll tax and workers compensation
- sign-on fees, golden hellos/restrictive covenants and restraints
- what sort of fringe benefit should I provide to be an employer of choice?
- can we income split?
- providing equity generally and employee share schemes in particular
- how to use phantom share schemes – profits versus capital growth/golden handcuff.