Can I employ my mental illness challenged adult child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many decades ago I did social security disability appeals. I had a client with schizophrenia who presented well and seemed employable. I won his case by asking him on examination a number of pointed questions that essentially made clear he could not hold a job for any real duration — in his case he would become paranoid, and it would lead to issues in the workplace. So with a good advocate social security disability may be an option

I agree with others that you can employ him in the way you suggested and just be a more forgiving employer. If he’s an independent contractor, he won’t get workers comp or unemployment insurance. I don’t know where you’re located but if anyone ever looked at it, my guess is the independent contractor status would not hold up. But if he never gets audited and he never files for UI or WC, odds are no one will look at it. With our nanny, we treated her as a W2 employee.

OP here. We are located in DC. I would not want him to be illegitimately classified as an independent contractor, although there seem to be a number of advantages to that classification.