You will find a general treatment of the topic of Independent Contractors (IC) in other Nolo guides but if you want a definitive and detailed guide, this is the book for you. All the way from templates of general independent contractor forms on CD-ROM to a thorough analysis of the various aspects of working with Independent Contractors, this book does a great job of discussing in plain English what every Small Business Owner needs to know. There is another Nolo guide on just the different contracts you could use for this purpose but this book contains most of those types of forms.

The book starts out with an introductory definition of an Independent Contractor and explains the benefits and risks of hiring one. The next natural step for every employer is to go through the process of determining the worker status and federal payroll taxes. After discussing this topic, the book explains the Safe Harbor Protection which is the process an IRS auditor is supposed to follow in determining if your classification of Independent Contractors should be questioned (something along these lines).

There are 3 chapters devoted to IRS specific topics - IRS Audits, tax rules for specific workers, and the IRS test for worker status. State payroll taxes, Workers' Compensation, hiring household workers, and labor/anti-discrimination laws are addressed after that.

The book then discusses the topic of Intellectual Property ownership in this context of Independent Contractors. This is followed by a few chapters on sample IC agreements, procedures for hiring ICs, how to avoid government audits etc. My favorite chapter is the Chapter 13: Intellectual Property Ownership as this can get very tricky if you aren't careful. In my business, this also happens to be one of the biggest risks in hiring ICs for our work instead of employees.

Overall, this is an excellent book that explains in plain English (as Nolo always does) of the intricacies involved in working with ICs. Of course, as some large corporations in the computer industry found out, it isn't that straight forward. So this book only helps you do some of the right things and avoid the obvious problems but there is no substitute for a good lawyer who can handle the more difficult issues.

Good luck!