Independent Contractor Agreement

1.When this agreement applies

This agreement binds you from the moment you accept it on the Working on Help screen, and applies to every job you accept or help with through Help. Each job is a separate contract between the worker and the poster (the Job Contract described in section 2 of the Payment Agreement), formed when the worker accepts the job. Averentium is not a party to any Job Contract.

2.The relationship

You are an independent contractor. You are not an employee, agent, partner or joint venturer of Averentium or of any poster, and nothing in this agreement or in Help makes you one.

By accepting this agreement you acknowledge that you understand that: (A) you are providing services through Help as an independent contractor; (B) you are not going to be treated as an employee of Averentium; (C) you are not going to be provided by Averentium with workers' compensation or unemployment compensation benefits; (D) you are obligated to pay all applicable federal and state income taxes, if any, on money you earn through Help, and Averentium will not make any tax withholdings from your payments other than backup withholding or other withholding that federal or state law requires; and (E) you are responsible for the majority of the supplies and other variable expenses you incur in performing services.

3.Your independence

(a) You provide services as an independent contractor and not as an employee of Averentium or of any poster.

(b) All or substantially all of what you are paid through Help is based on the performance of services or other output (a price for each job you complete, plus any tip), and never on hours worked, a salary, or a minimum or regular payment.

(c) You may work any hours or schedule you choose, or not at all. Averentium does not prescribe hours or days when you must be available, signed in or accepting jobs. If you accept a job at a time the poster asked for, you have chosen to work at that time.

(d) Nothing in this agreement or in Help restricts your ability to perform services for anyone else, to use any other app, website or marketplace, including one that competes with Help, to advertise your services, or to engage in any other occupation or business, at any time.

(e) You bear all or substantially all of the expenses you incur in performing services, and you have no right to reimbursement of them from Averentium.

(f) You provide and maintain your own tools, equipment, supplies, clothing and transport. Averentium does not supply tools or equipment and does not require you to use any particular supplies or equipment.

(g) Averentium does not direct, supervise or control the manner, means or methods of your work, does not provide on-site supervision, and does not require any training, meeting or uniform. The poster describes the result they want; you decide how to achieve it. The requirements to obey the law, to be at the address before starting and to take completion photographs exist to keep a record of the job, so that a payment can be released or a report resolved; they do not confirm the work and are not instructions on how to do the work.

(h) You are responsible for paying all taxes on your income. Averentium provides you no medical, health or other insurance, workers' compensation, or unemployment compensation benefits.

4.Choosing jobs and prices

You are free to accept, decline or ignore any job, and any poster, without penalty of any kind. Declining or not responding to a job never affects your account, your standing, your visibility or your access to other jobs, and Averentium will not suspend or end this agreement because you did not accept a particular job. The poster proposes the price for a job; you decide whether that price is acceptable to you. Averentium never deducts a fee or commission from the price: its service fee is charged to the poster. Once you accept a job, failing to do it as described is different from declining it, and the consequences in the Terms of Service apply: a refund decided on a payment report because you did not do the job as posted, or for damage you caused, counts as a strike, and one strike is a warning and a second suspends your account until an administrator reviews it (section 12 of the Terms of Service). Withdrawing before you check in, and using Stop for safety, are not failures to do a job (section 9 of the Payment Agreement).

5.Helpers

You may, at your own discretion, bring a helper to help you complete a job you have accepted, but only if the helper has their own Help worker account in good standing, has accepted the Terms of Service, the Waiver and Release and this agreement, and has been added to the job in Help and accepted the invitation, so that the poster can see who is coming. You, and not Averentium, are responsible for paying your helper, for any obligation you owe them and for their conduct at the job, and you remain responsible to the poster for the whole job. Helpers are not paid through Help. Averentium has no contract with, does not employ, and owes nothing to any helper for work on your job. Helpers are not allowed on "Minor repairs" jobs in California. A helper's work on a job is governed by this agreement, as yours is.

6.Your business

You perform every job under your own name or your own business name. You are not required to wear, display or use the Help or Averentium name, logo or any uniform, and you must not represent that you are an employee or agent of Averentium. You confirm that you are engaged, or are free to engage, in your own business of providing the kinds of services you accept, that you may offer those services to the public other than through Help, and that you do not depend on Help for your livelihood.

7.Licences, permits and registrations

Before you accept a job you confirm that you hold every licence, permit, certification and registration the law requires for that type of work where it is done, including any state contractor's licence and any business licence or business tax registration required by the city, county or state. You will not accept a job that section 10 of the Terms of Service does not allow, including work that needs a licence or permit you do not hold, or a building permit. You will not advertise or describe yourself as a contractor or a licensed tradesperson unless you hold that licence. Averentium does not check licences. It relies on your confirmations and keeps a record of each one: your acceptance of this agreement, and the line you accept when you accept each job.

8.Doing the work

You will do each job competently, lawfully and as described; start it only when you are at the address; and take the completion photographs Help asks for. Check-in, location and photographs exist to keep a record of the job, so that a payment can be released or a report resolved; they are not supervision. You alone decide whether work is lawful and whether its risks are acceptable to you, and you may stop at any time without penalty, including by using Stop for safety. You are responsible for your own health, disability, occupational-accident and liability insurance.

9.Pay

For each job you receive the full job amount, plus every tip in full. Averentium's service fee is charged to the poster and is never deducted from what you receive. You earn the job amount as section 10 of the Payment Agreement says, and it is paid by transfer to your payout account, as the Payment Agreement describes. An amount may be recovered from you only as section 10 of the Payment Agreement allows. Except as this agreement and the Payment Agreement provide, you are not entitled to any other payment, reimbursement or benefit from Averentium.

10.No benefits and no insurance

Because you are not an employee, Averentium does not provide wages, overtime, paid leave, health insurance, retirement contributions, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation or any other employment benefit; does not withhold income or employment taxes from your payments, other than backup withholding or other withholding the law requires; and does not insure you, your helper, your vehicle or your equipment. You are responsible for your own insurance.

11.Classification

Averentium treats you as an independent contractor because of the facts described in this agreement and the marketplace contractor laws of the states that have them, and files any information return about you consistently with that treatment. Whether a working relationship is employment is decided under the law by the facts, and no tax authority, agency or court is bound by what the parties call it. If a court, arbitrator or government agency finally decides that you were an employee of Averentium for a particular purpose, that decision applies only to that purpose and period, the rest of this agreement continues to apply, and, to the extent the law allows, everything you were paid for jobs counts toward any amount found to be owed to you. Nothing in this agreement waives a right that the law does not allow to be waived, and nothing in it or in Help is tax, legal or accounting advice.

12.Your promises

You promise Averentium that:

(a) you are at least 18 and old enough to make a binding contract on your own where you live (19 in Alabama, 21 in Mississippi);

(b) you are a United States person for federal tax purposes and are legally allowed to work in the United States;

(c) the information you give Averentium and Stripe is true; and

(d) you hold every licence the work you accept requires.

If any of these promises is untrue, you will indemnify as section 21 of this agreement and section 23 of the Terms of Service provide, and Averentium may close your account.

13.Taxes

You are responsible for reporting your earnings and filing and paying all federal, state, local, and other taxes applicable to you. Help and AVERENTIUM LLC do not prepare or file your personal income tax return. When required, AVERENTIUM LLC or its payment and tax reporting provider may report payments made to you to federal or state tax authorities and provide you with applicable tax documents.

You are in business for yourself. You alone are responsible for:

(a) determining, reporting and paying every federal, state and local tax on or measured by the amounts you receive through Help, including income tax, self-employment tax and any required estimated tax payments;

(b) obtaining any tax registration, business licence, permit or account number that your work requires where you live or where you work;

(c) determining whether any sales, use, general excise, gross receipts or similar tax applies to your services and, except where Averentium is required by law to collect or pay that tax on a job and does so, registering for, charging, collecting, reporting and paying it;

(d) keeping your own records of your income and expenses; and

(e) any interest, penalty or addition to tax that results from your not doing so.

Tips are part of your income. You must report all of your income whether or not you receive a tax form. Averentium does not withhold income, self-employment, Social Security, Medicare or unemployment taxes from your payments, except backup withholding or other withholding that a law requires Averentium to make. To the fullest extent the law allows, neither AVERENTIUM LLC nor any of its owners, members, managers, operators, employees or administrators is responsible for any of your taxes or for any interest, penalty or cost relating to them.

14.Tax information

Before you may accept a paid job you must give your correct legal name, address and taxpayer identification number and certify them, under penalties of perjury, in the tax information screens Stripe provides inside Help, which take the place of a paper Form W-9. You must also certify that you are a United States citizen or other United States person for federal tax purposes. If you are not, or stop being, a United States person, you may not accept paid jobs and must tell Averentium at once. You must correct this information whenever it changes, and within the time Help gives you whenever Stripe or a tax authority reports that it is missing or does not match its records. If the Internal Revenue Service notifies Averentium that your name and number do not match, Averentium sends you the notice the law requires and may require proof of your number, such as a copy of your Social Security card or a letter from the Internal Revenue Service, before it stops any withholding. Averentium may hold payments to you while your tax information is incomplete.

15.Backup withholding

Where federal or state law requires it, for example because you have not provided a certified taxpayer identification number or the Internal Revenue Service has told Averentium to withhold, Averentium withholds the amount the law requires from payments to you, pays it to the tax authority and reports it on your tax form. You authorise that withholding. Amounts withheld are paid to the government for your account and are credited against your tax when you file your return. They are not refunded by Averentium, except that an amount withheld in error is corrected as the law allows. To the fullest extent the law allows, neither AVERENTIUM LLC nor any of its owners, members, managers, operators, employees or administrators is liable for any amount withheld as the law requires, or for any delay in payment while your tax information is incomplete.

16.Tax reporting

Averentium, itself or through a service provider it chooses (currently Stripe), files the information returns the law requires Averentium to file about amounts paid to you through Help, furnishes you the statements the law requires, and files with a state where the law of that state requires it. Averentium decides in good faith, from its own records, which form applies, the amounts reported, the year in which an amount is reported, and any code the form requires, such as a code for tips. Where the form requires gross amounts, amounts later refunded, reversed or recovered are not subtracted. Averentium may file a return even where it is not required to, and may file corrected returns. An amount recovered from you in a later year does not change a form filed for an earlier year. These decisions are made to meet Averentium's own legal obligations and are not tax advice. If you believe a form is wrong, tell Averentium through Report a Problem in Help; your remedy under this agreement is a corrected form where the law allows one; this does not limit any right the law gives you.

17.Electronic delivery of tax forms

Your tax forms are delivered electronically only if you give the separate consent offered in the tax information screens inside Help; otherwise they are mailed to you. Accepting this agreement is not that consent.

18.Taxes collected through Help

The law of a state may require Averentium, as a marketplace facilitator or marketplace provider, to collect or pay tax on jobs performed there, and Averentium may begin, stop or change that collection whenever it determines the law requires. Where Averentium collects or pays a tax on a job, you must not charge the poster that tax again, and you authorise Averentium to give the tax authority the information about you and your jobs that it requires. Averentium's collection does not relieve you of any registration, filing or payment obligation that the law still places on you, such as a wholesale-rate general excise tax or a return reporting sales made through a marketplace. You agree to give Averentium, on request, any information or certificate it reasonably needs to determine the tax on your jobs.

19.Your payout account and Stripe

Your payout account is provided by Stripe. Sections 14, 15 and 16 of the Payment Agreement apply to it, including the Stripe Connected Account Agreement (https://stripe.com/connect-account/legal/full), which includes the Stripe Terms of Service (https://stripe.com/legal/ssa). You accept the Stripe Services Agreement on the Working on Help screen, together with this agreement. Stripe's Privacy Policy is at https://stripe.com/privacy.

20.Term and ending this agreement

Either you or Averentium may end this agreement at any time, with or without cause, on reasonable notice to the other, and this section expressly provides for that. You may also end it on your own at any time, on reasonable notice given to Averentium, by telling us in the app or by closing your account. When Averentium ends it without cause, it will give you at least 7 days' notice in the app and by email. Averentium may suspend or end it immediately, without prior notice, for a breach of the Agreement or a reason of safety, fraud, the law or a payment partner's requirement, and may tell you the reason, unless the law or someone's safety prevents it. Ending it does not affect a job already under way, a payment already owed, or the sections that survive.

This agreement lasts until it is ended. After it ends you may still post jobs on Help unless your account is closed. Sections 9, 11 and 13 to 22 survive the end of this agreement.

21.Indemnity

To the extent the law allows, you will indemnify and hold harmless AVERENTIUM LLC and its owners, members, managers, operators, employees and administrators against any tax, interest, penalty, claim, loss and reasonable cost (including reasonable accountants' and legal fees) assessed against or incurred by any of them because:

(a) tax information you gave was false, incomplete or out of date;

(b) you did not register for, collect or pay a tax that the law placed on you and not on Averentium;

(c) you charged a poster a tax that Averentium had already collected;

(d) someone else makes a claim arising from your conduct, or your helper's conduct, on a job; or

(e) a promise in section 12 was untrue.

This indemnity does not apply to any tax or other liability that the law imposes on Averentium itself as an employer. It is in addition to the indemnities in section 23 of the Terms of Service and section 8 of the Waiver and Release, but you do not pay twice for the same loss.

22.Disputes and governing law

Sections 25 (arbitration agreement and class action waiver), 26 (governing law and courts) and 27 (changes) of the Terms of Service apply to this agreement as if set out here, including to any dispute about your classification.

23.General

This agreement, with the rest of the Agreement, is the whole agreement between you and Averentium about your work through Help. Section 31 of the Terms of Service, including severability and reformation, applies to it. Changes are made only as section 27 of the Terms of Service describes, with a fresh acceptance. Nothing in this agreement waives a right that the law does not allow to be waived.