He is not receiving a W2 from the agency. It was clear:
I agree that seems to be the deal here.
Not strange from the staffing company's point of view. It relieves the staffing company of any employment tax responsibilities for the OP, so long as that form of the arrangement is respected. That may be why he formed the separate entity in the first place, to make him more appealing to the staffing companies. I don't see why forming it in WY would be any benefit, though.
Strange from the OP's and client company's POV. The staffing agency doesn't seem to be doing any of the things they are being paid for other than writing a check.
The staffing company matches him with clients that have need of his work, like they do with any other staffer they place for clients. What makes you think this is any different in that regard?
That's a good point. Just don't usually see the extra layer of a corporation being paid by the agency then the corp paying the employee.
Not the most common arrangement, but I can see where it would be attractive to the staffing company, and it might save the OP a bit of tax, too. However, that saving may end up more than offset by loss of various benefits and protections the OP would otherwise get being an employee of the staffing company. And as I've said before, I'm not seeing a point to organizing it in WY.
I ran a staffing company for 2 decades and worked with MANY others. While I'm well aware that there are companies that hook IC and clients up the industry doesn't generally consider that "staffing".
That is an odd distinction from my perspective. Whether the person you are providing is an IC or your own employee, what the client sees is still the same — you are providing a body to do the work the client needs. So why is the former not staffing and the latter is?
But that isn't what the temp agencies' work comp carrier sees. They see yet another employee that needs to be covered. And if the client isn't going to have to cover taxes or work comp because the worker is an IC there is a major loss of benefit to the client.
That doesn't make sense. If the client doesn't have to pay WC for the worker the staffing agency supplies that would seem to me to be a benefit to the client, not a loss of a benefit, as it would help reduce client costs.
I doubt many staffing companies are going to reduce their rate that much if the employee is providing their own WC. With this sort of worker, the WC rate isn't that high, to begin with, and there is always a chance the staffing agency is going to get charged for it anyway mainly because the carriers that cover staffing agencies watch them like a hawk because of the very common act of miscoding workers into other, cheaper WC codes.