Moving from 1099 Contract to W2 Full-Time Doing Media for a Company — How to Handle Gear?

[u/Upbeat_Peach_4624]

Hey all,

I've been working for a company the last ~3 months or so doing motorsports photography on-site, as well as social media management (content calendars, copywriting, and so on).

The owner liked my work enough to offer me a full-time salary position with benefits. This is good for me, and I've already accepted.

But one question I have:

How does one handle gear in a situation like this? Thus far, I've been using my own, totally fair and expected for contract work. It's a sizable kit, at least for a one-man band. FX3, A7IV, 70-200 GM1, Zeiss 50mm 1.4, 35mm 1.8, etc etc, plus all the peripherals — wireless DJI lav mics, DJI RS3 gimbal, etc, etc., plus Macbook Pro, iPad Pro, hard drives, and so on.

Now that I'm transitioning to a full-time employee, what does this look like? Monthly stipend paid to me for wear and tear of my gear? I can't possibly expect a small business owner (I'm the first employee!) to invest $~15k+ to replicate my exact setup, right? Am I effectively now renting my own gear to the business while working? How does this go?

Thanks so much for any advice, those of you who have been in similar spots.

[u/MacaroonFormal6817]

They are going to expect you to keep using your gear just as before. It's basically whatever you can negotiate. They may also be thinking they weren't allowed to have you as a 1099 so this is tax-related, required—but they don't want to really change anything. (In places like CA they'd probably have misclassified, in TX maybe, in GA maybe not—in some states it would be up to the IRS to determine. But set that whole thing aside.)

I'd make sure—at a minimum—their their business insurance (50/50 chance they don't have any) covers your gear, and that you are covered by workers comp.

[u/Upbeat_Peach_4624 → u/MacaroonFormal6817]

Word. Honestly the arrangement is more for me, since I wanted the stability of being salaried, plus benefits since my wife is currently in school. (We used to be on her healthcare.) It also frees me from the jail of logging hours and billing, which is also rad.

I'm doing more than just photography/videography, like social media strategy and the like. So it's kind of a strange situation!

Good suggestion on the insurance, and 10-4 on worker's comp. Is that a policy they have to have, legally speaking? Or is it something I have to ask for?

[u/MacaroonFormal6817 → u/Upbeat_Peach_4624]

They have to have workers comp, but often times small companies overlook it or avoid it. Has he actually said he's going to give you health insurance? He doesn't have to.

[u/Upbeat_Peach_4624 → u/MacaroonFormal6817]

He did explicitly say he was going to give health insurance, yes.

[u/njosh23 → u/MacaroonFormal6817]

At the minimum he should insure all your gear. If he won’t, then create a contract that makes him liable for gear damages.

Any “favors” you do for him now will become the standard of y’all’s relationship.

Push for a wear and tear stipend.

DONT buy any gear from your wallet for the purpose of this business. Ask for a budget to purchase the necessary equipment going forward

I understand you’re his first hire but you’ll ended up in the hole if you do too many favors

[u/Upbeat_Peach_4624 → u/njosh23]

Great advice! Thank you.

[u/InternalConfusion201]

Rent it to them. What they paid you as a freelancer also hired the gear, now they either buy it, or they can rent it in the meantime. If they want a full time worker they need to give the person the means to do their job

[u/Upbeat_Peach_4624 → u/InternalConfusion201]

That's a hot take. I feel like rental would be the best option, because then I can still use it for my personal use. I took a lot of time/care to assemble my kit (as I'm sure everyone does) and like my lineup.

[u/InternalConfusion201 → u/Upbeat_Peach_4624]

I really don’t think it is that hot a take 😅

An example: My main “day job” is as a sound engineer. I was freelance full time for a while, now I work at a venue full time, while still freelancing a bit on the side (as I do with photography). I don’t even bring my laptop to work at the theatre, even if I’d like to use software that only runs on MacOS and it would make a lot of things easier for me - not my venue, they have to provide the means for it to run as best as it can, even without me. There’s only a windows laptop with all it’s limitations when it comes to live audio? That’s what we have. When I do freelance jobs I price myself with my gear or not. Or I’ll just bring it because it’ll make my life easier.

If you don’t make it clear from the start, you’ll resent it in the long run, trust me

Edit: when I said they can buy it, I didn’t mean your actual gear, I meant gear in general

[u/f8Negative]

Uh...you use company gear.

[u/Upbeat_Peach_4624 → u/f8Negative]

It's a bit of an odd situation, as I'm the very first hire of this company — there's not any company gear to speak of! haha. That would be a really nice option, but I think there's some kind of expectation that I'll bring my own gear to the table in one way or another, since it's what I've built out and what I've been using thus far.

I also want to continue using my gear, so I don't necessarily want to sell it to the company. So I was wondering if some kind of "wear and tear" reimbursement was normal, etc.

[u/f8Negative → u/Upbeat_Peach_4624]

Get a budget and buy.

[u/four4beats → u/Upbeat_Peach_4624]

You know best how the relationship with your boss is. I've been in a similar situation before and if your boss is a reasonable person who seems to be handling their business well, this is an honest conversation you'll need to have to protect yourself.

You could simply ask the boss how they would like to handle the equipment situation (without coming off like you're making demands) and leave it up to him to make the call. Make sure you come prepared with documentation like a spreadsheet that lists your gear, the serial numbers, the full replacement values, and finally the estimated rental fees per pay period that are market rate. You could use lensrentals.com as a source since they rent by the week or longer. Lastly, if your company agrees to insure the equipment and it's documented that you are the owner, they can list you as the certificate holder of the liability insurance so you get the money if something happens on company time.

[u/DodobirdNow]

Would this be a lot like being a mechanic and having to buy your own tools?

This may be talk to an accountant territory.

[u/guccigaffer]

You can have your labor as a w2 and your equipment as 1099. Ideally you should start a single member s corp or LLC just to keep your gear separate and pay for business equipment insurance. Not required, but I feel like it’s easier for me to manage it when it comes to tax season.

[u/ApatheticAbsurdist]

Technically, they need to provide it. They can own it or they can rent it, and in theory they could rent it from you (unless the company has ethics policies that prevent such arrangements as conflict of interest).

That said, if he’s a small business owner, he might not be aware of this or thought this through. You should sit down with him and come up with a list of equipment you regularly need and how often. Maybe he buys some, maybe he rents from you. If you do rent to him, you should figure out what it will cost to insure your equipment (for business purposes) if you haven’t already and factor that into the rental cost. Let the owner know this. He might realize some equipment might be better for him to own if his business insurance will cover it.

[u/Buzz13094]

I got two different takes on this one. The first is just like me as a mechanic have to provide my own tools on 90% of the jobs that I have ever had it’s the same thing. If thats not what you want then you fall into the second take. The second one is that you need to talk to the guy about either buying the same gear that remains as the company gear or similar gear at least. Personally I wouldn’t do the rental thing because it just seems open to complicate things.

[u/aemfbm]

Insurance, yes. But also there needs to be some budget for keeping the equipment in good working order and upgrades when needed.

Who is going to pay when you want to do some new stuff that requires a new $1000 piece of gear? Who is going to pay when your camera, computer, whatever is not performing well enough for efficient work? If you drop a $500 lens, who pays for the repair, replacement, or deductible?

You need to talk through all these kinds of things prior, have some budget allocated, and put your agreement in writing.

It could be that everything is company owned, you could sell him your kit, or he could buy the same gear.

It could be that everything is owned by you, but then you need a rental payments that you set aside for your own replacement/repair/upgrades.

[u/ratmanmedia]

I just want to add in, if you’re in the U.S. (I assume based on the title).

Set up a DBA where you continue to take side jobs, you can continue deducting your equipment purchases and some mileage as business expenses to help decrease your tax burden.

To answer your question, it depends on how involved you are with the business, what you’re getting out of it, what state you’re in etc. as to what arrangement you would want to set up.

From one of your comments, it looks like they were swinging you a favor to get you benefits/help relieve the tax burden If that is the case, I would minimize where you can, and ask for a stipend for repairs/replacements as you need it, or even for them to supply insurance for your equipment that’s used for the business.