Young and naive, I accepted what seemed to be a dream job last year at a very small business (owner and one other employee) on the boss’ condition that they would pay me as a self employed 1099 contractor as a “trial”. I was paid the full salary for 5 months with the employer taking out no taxes; I set the money aside to pay them myself. Boss’ attorney informed them that this was illegal and I was paid as a regular W2 employee for the sixth month. Well, boss turned out to be a horrible psycho and I quit after month 6. That was June.
Fast forward to now. They purposefully neglected to send me any tax forms at all. They said they would send them this week, so I’m expecting a 1099 and W2 next week but I’m wondering if I should fill out the IRS report form to launch an investigation and get classified as an employee for those first 5 months and force my boss to pay their share of the taxes so I don’t have to pay double to the IRS. Would I owe them money in addition to the IRS? Would I get audited? I don’t want to make more of a headache for myself, it was only 5 months and just shy of $20k and I agreed to it knowing it wasn’t in my best interest. I’m in MA and employer is CA if that matters.