That's a good point. One suspects tho that governments are more interested in getting the "proper freelancers" to be treated as employees, since they usually have higher earnings and therefore offer higher revenue possibilities. The UK is going through a similar reform process right now and lots of people are being classed as employees and therefore taking massive pay cuts. End the end, you end up with temporary workers who're taxed as employees but have almost none of the benefits of permanent employees (in the UK at least).
In the USA: the government gets its cut no matter what.
Employees are taxed 6.2% by the government, and 6.2% to the Employer.
Gig workers are taxed 12.4% by the government ("self employed" tax). So in US-law, the government gets its money either way.
That's why a "gig-worker in name only" is such an advantage to companies in the USA. It allows companies to cut out 6.2% of its taxes and shove it to the gig-worker instead.
The total cost of an employee isn't different to the employer in either case. For any X which is the cost of an employee .124X goes to govt. When .062 is sent to govt directly from the employer the govt is effectively hiding .5 of tax liability from the employee.
Gig worker sees the whole .124, which is probably why govt wants more classed as employee.
"the govt is effectively hiding .5 of tax liability from the employee " <--- this. this is the important part.
that extra 6.2% isn't a tax on the employer at all! it is a tax on employment, and it really is part of the employee's taxation (in fact that 2 * 6.2% is a "socialized" part of the employee wage, that fraction of wage goes to the Social Security Administration to be put in a fund used then to pay out retirement pensions). Hiding this fact is the best part of tax: a tax you do not feel is the best kind of tax from the point of view of the tax collector... of course it is the worst kind of tax from the point of view of the taxed entity.
"Gig worker sees the whole .124, which is probably why govt wants more classed as employee." <-- that's right!
however one could argue that everyone should see the whole .124 so that they know better how they are taxed (I'm not saying this level is too high, on the contrary I think it's too low, but what irks me is that it is done under the covers...).
