Ok, if you are "self-employed", depending on the contract you
get, You have to pay for certain insurance to protect against
someone tripping over you briefcase. This is General Liability
coverage. You may be required to carry a US$1M (or higher)
umbrella policy in case you park your car at the client's site.
If you carry any of the client's personnel in your vehicle, or
property, you may need a special rider for that.
Then, you have insurance (health) that you have to cover yourself
with.
All of these things are part of the costs of being a small
company or a LARGE company. But the bigger companies get
discounts on these policies.
And what about "On-Call?" If I am on-call, there are things I
can't do. For instance, I can't go out and work on Instrument
currency with another pilot. Can't get the call in the plane. You
can't go sailing, or whatever.
You aren't salaried. You are having to have the cash flow needed
for any expense your company has. And some of these companies
require YOU to foot the bill. You might be in a state where if
you work on any program that has direct control of the hardware
(z/OS anyone, or z/VM), you have to charge sales tax for that
time you worked on that (Ohio is one that has or had that
requirement). If the client refuses to pay the sales tax, how do
you handle it? Since I was a hired manager, I gave it to their
sysprog.
Until you have run a company (and I have run a few), you don't
know all the biz expenses you have to cover, and if your rates
aren't correct, you eat the fees you incur for getting taxes
done. And you find you are better off as an LLC than just 1099.
Lots of stuff you have to know.... And your rates have to be
adjusted for changes in law.... Just say'n'
Regards,
Steve Thompson
On 2/17/2026 3:31 PM, Jousma, David wrote:
Steve,
I don’t know what part of the country you are in, but if you are asking for
$120/hr W2, that’s $250K a year based on 2080 hours. That kind of coin might
be normal in NYC, or LAX, but pretty much everywhere else that’s overpaid.
$120-$150K/year is reasonable, which on the high-end is close to $72/hr. More
power to you if you can get it. I realize you have to cover your own medical,
and IRA as a self employed contractor.
_______________________________
Dave Jousma
Vice President | Director, Platform Engineering
Fifth Third Bank | 1830 East Paris Ave, SE | Grand Rapids, MI 49546
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of Steve
Beaver <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 at 3:23 PM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Interesting
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