You may be paid on time finally as a freelancer for VFX, but you will have to pay an outside payroll company 5%??? Also, the author says artists don't pay taxes when they invoice, when they actually end up PAYING MORE when tax time comes around than if they were an employee. In fact, when studios pull a 30-45 or sometimes "90 day net" on artists the checks are so big they are taxed upwards of 45-65%!! Not to mention the guy saying he owed 20k in taxes in this article??? If you are freelancer, you should be putting away for tax time.
From AWN:
The IRS and the Freelance Dilemma
The IRS and the imaginary sequel to Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs have one thing in common: they’re both in search of more money.
For Brooks, it was just a gag; for the IRS, it’s a mission to plug what the agency sees as a $14 billion annual gap between their estimates of taxes due and what was actually collected – and for a while now they’ve been targeting the nebulous world of the 1099-paid freelancer or independent contractor. That person may be doing the same work as a fulltime employee, but both the freelancer and the company avoid paying upfront income or social security taxes. The IRS had been scrutinizing companies like Microsoft and Federal Express, outfits that made use of so many freelancers on a long-term, open-ended basis it gave birth to the word ‘permalancer.’
In recent months however, the IRS has set its sights on the animation and visual effects industries. (California and New York – states hosting huge amounts of production work – have also become more aggressive in their tax-collecting efforts.) It’s a world where animators and effects artists are nomads, travelling from company to company, coming on board to work on a commercial or a movie before moving onto a new project at the next shop that needs their services.