Thank you for your interest in working for Lingua Franca Language Solutions, LLC! 

With us, you will advance your career, enhance your portfolio and, most importantly, help others cross their language barriers!

Before you begin working with us, there are a few things that you need to know.

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Below you'll find your terms and conditions of employment, the nature of your work and what to expect, and what we will expect of you. 

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This website and your employment thereof are provided by Lingua Franca Language Solutions, LLC and any usage of the following: "Lingua Franca", "Lingua Franca Language Solutions", "we", "us", and "our" is in reference to said entity.

 

Terms of Employment

Your work for us will be done as an independent contractor. Some people refer to this as a "freelancer" position. This means that you are self employed, and are not directly employed by Lingua Franca Language Solutions, LLC.

Instead of being an employee of a separate entity (Lingua Franca Language Solutions) you will either represent yourself as a Sole Proprietor or another business entity (LLC, S-Corp, etc.). 

As an independent contractor and a self-employed individual, you are responsible for your own equipment, software, and for planning your own time and taxes accordingly. 

 

Since you are not a direct employee of Lingua Franca, you will not receive a W-2 form for tax-reporting purposes. Instead, the process is as follows: 

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First, you will fill out a W-9 form during your onboarding process which will request from you the following information: 

• Full Name 

• Entity Type / Federal Tax Classification

• Taxpayer Identification Number (either your Social Security Number or your EIN (Employer Identification Number))

• Your address or that of your business

• Your exemptions (if any)

• Your backup withholding status 

• Your signature certifying the veracity of the information you provided

If you are not a United States citizen and are not performing any of your work physically within the United States, you will need to fill out a W-8BEN form instead. You will be expected to report your taxes however it is required within your home country. 

These forms will allow us to hire you as a contractor and send you end-of-year tax filing forms. 

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For any given year, if you receive over $600 in wages from Lingua Franca, we will provide you with a 1099-NEC form at the beginning of the following fiscal year. 

The 1099-NEC will outline all of the work you have done for us the payments you have received for it. You will use this information to attach a Schedule C to the Form 1040 that you would normally use to file your personal income taxes. 

Please note, if you earn less than $600 in wages from us for a particular year, we will not send you a 1099-NEC, but you are still responsible for reporting that income to the IRS on your federal income tax return. 

***Rhode Island now requires contractors who reside within the state to register online as an independent contractor.

A huge benefit of self employment is the ability to reduce the taxes you owe.

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We know that this can all seem daunting if you are unfamiliar with freelance/contractor work. However, it is much less complicated than it seems, especially after the first year. In addition, if you hire an accountant or use a website, application, or software to file your taxes, they will be familiar with these things and can easily adjust your taxes accordingly.

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Although we do not have any affiliation with TurboTax, we highly recommend them for filing tax income tax returns as a self-employed individual, since they make it very clear and easy, and do all of the work for you after you input your information. 

 

Onboarding

As of right now, you have probably already, or are in the process of, submitting an application to work for Lingua Franca Language Solutions. We will review your application and your résumé and decide if you could be a good fit for our company. If we decide to move further with your application we will contact you for an interview through Zoom.

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If we still think you are a good fit after the interview, we will contact you within the week for further steps. 

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The further steps for beginning a career with us include the following:

• We may request information to perform a background check, education verification, and to confirm the validity of your identification and employment eligibility. 

• We may ask you to complete an interview or assessment to verify the skills and languages you have listed 

• You will be asked to complete a typing speed test and send us a screenshot of the results

• We will confirm that you have the proper software and/or equipment and/or transportation to complete the jobs will perform

• You will be asked to complete and sign a W-9 Form (mentioned above)

• You will be asked to sign a Service Agreement acknowledging and accepting the terms of your employment with us (this page)

• You will be asked to sign an agreement ensuring client confidentiality

• We will confirm your availability and most reliable contact information

• And finally, we will debrief your job description, answer any questions or concerns you may have, and provide you with pertinent resources and ways to contact us if you need any help

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Nature of Work

As we mentioned before, your work with us will be performed as an independent contractor. 

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This means that you have a lot of freedom with your work, how and where you complete it, how much you complete, and what you use to complete it. You will be part of our network of linguists that we contact when a client requests our services. If the timeframe of the jobs falls within your provided availability and your skills and credentials are best for the job, we will contact you to complete the job.

 

If you are the first choice for the job, you will have 15 minutes to accept the job before we start asking other contractors in our network. You may still reply to accept that job after those 15 minutes, and we will give you the job if nobody else has accepted it at that time. As an independent contractor, you have the freedom to accept the jobs that you want and decline the jobs that you do not want. With this freedom, also comes some inconsistency with the work. If there are no clients in need of services, or at least none that fit your capabilities, we will not be able to give you job offers during that time. Because of this, please account for some inconsistency with periods of high job volume and also those with low job volume. 

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Depending on your skills and the position you signed up for, you will be preforming contract jobs involving written translation, on-site, telephonic, and/or remote video interpretation, subtitling, transcribing, editing/proofreading, post-editing, etc. 

 

As an independent contractor, you work accepting individual contracts for individual jobs. Since you are not a typical employee, you do not have any consistent obligation to consistent work or attendance for our company. When a job is offered to you, the terms, nature, timeframe, expectations, and other parameters of the job will be disclosed. You can choose to accept or decline these offers, however, if you accept the offer, you are accepting a contract between you and Lingua Franca Language Solutions that lasts for the full duration of that job. After accepting a contract job, you do have an obligation to complete that job correctly based on the skills you listed in your application. If you fail to complete the job or to comply with the provided terms (such as submitting the job late, providing incorrect or inaccurate work, or omitting required components), there may be repercussions, potentially including, but not limited to: termination of your Service Agreement, denial of payment, or reduction of payment to cover losses to the company. 

 

As an independent contractor, your Service Agreement with us is at will. This means that either you or we can terminate your agreement to work for us at any time without prior notice for virtually any reason (except those reasons that are unlawful, constituting Wrongful Termination). 

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Confidentiality 

As stated in the confidentiality agreement that you will be asked to sign at the beginning of your employment, you will be required at times to deal with sensitive information pertaining to our clients.

 

It is imperative that you complete your job confidentially without disclosing to any third party any information discussed with you or provided to you during your jobs. This information is to be used exclusively in order to complete the job, whether it be a translation, a live interpretation, or any other type of job. In addition, you are expected to discard any and all information after the job is completed. 

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Such sensitive information in question may include, but is not limited to: names, addresses, dates, tax information, account information, ID numbers, PIN numbers, private operations, etc.

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If you fail to comply with this general non-disclosure agreement, you may face legal action on part of our company and/or our clients for losses and pain and suffering incurred. 

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Payment 

The amount that you receive as reimbursement depends on the type of job, the length of the job, and the languages involved.

We charge our clients for our services on either an hourly basis or a per-word basis, depending on the service. You will receive 65% of the cost of the service that we charge the client. Lingua Franca collects a 35% royalty for facilitating the service and to cover processing fees. 

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Visit our Services Page for a full list of our services and their respective prices for your reference.

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Payment for completing a job will be processed as soon as the job is submitted and received by the customer. 

You can choose to receive payment either through PayPal or via a direct deposit ACH payment. Please note, bank processing times may apply.

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Tolerance 

Lingua Franca Language Solutions, LLC is an equal opportunity company that does not and shall not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, color, place of origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, military status, or any other criteria in any area of our business. 

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For this reason, we request that you, a worker representing us, also do not discriminate against any of our other workers or clients for any reason. We do not and will not tolerate any prejudice or discrimination on your part.

 

There will be times when you encounter people of other cultures or walks of life that you may not be familiar or comfortable with. Regardless, you must show them complete respect and understanding, especially because there may be times where you encounter them in vulnerable situations with sensitive information, and they are relying on you and on us in a time of need.

 

In addition, you may encounter people who are gender non-conforming during your jobs and it is your responsibility to address them and assist them properly. We understand that certain pronouns and gender identities are newer or lesser known, and may not have a direct equivalent in languages other than English, but we ask that you respect and address all people as they wish. If you are translating or interpreting for this person, we also ask that you, to the best of your ability, maintain their gender identity in the translation to avoid misunderstandings and distress for the client, which may require some research on your part. If you are unprepared for this or unwilling to do the research, we ask that you let us know so that we may pass the job to somebody who is a better fit to ensure respect for all of our clients.

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If we suspect that you are acting with prejudice, discrimination, disrespect, or malintent for our workers or our clients, there will be repercussions and your Service Agreement with us may be terminated. 

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Intellectual Property 

As part of your work with us, you may be asked to edit, translate, or interpret publications, works, media, etc. 

Unless otherwise stated, all work completed by you remains intellectual property either of Lingua Franca Language Solutions, LLC or of our clients. 

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You are not to claim, sell, copy, reproduce, share, or disclose, etc. any information, publication, or media that you are asked to work with as part of your work for us. 

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If you wish to use a completed job or project as part of a portfolio of your work and experience, you must first receive authorization by contacting us and receiving written permission. 

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Any unauthorized and unprecedented use of the content that you work with on your jobs may result in repercussions, termination of your Service Agreement, or even legal action. 

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If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, or if you are in need of clarification regarding any of the aforementioned terms and information, you can contact us via our Contact Page or by the methods listed below:

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