Deck building compresses most of its revenue into spring and summer, and almost every builder brings on extra hands to get through it. How you classify those hands changes your obligations, and in some cases changes what your own health coverage should look like.
Seasonal Help Is Where Classification Goes Wrong
Bringing on a labourer for the season and paying them by the day, with your tools, on your schedule, on your jobs, is an employment relationship in most states regardless of whether you issue a 1099. Control decides it: who sets the hours, who supplies the tools, who carries the risk of profit and loss.
Getting this wrong is expensive — back payroll tax, workers' compensation premium and penalties — and it is one of the more commonly audited arrangements in seasonal trades.
What Employees Change About Your Own Coverage
If you do have employees, offering them coverage moves you into group insurance, which follows different rules from individual marketplace coverage and usually determines your own plan as well. Below fifty employees there is no requirement to offer anything, so for most deck builders this is a choice rather than an obligation — but it is a choice worth pricing, particularly if you are trying to keep a good crew across seasons.
Estimating a Six-Month Season
Revenue lands roughly April to October in most of the country. The marketplace still wants a figure for all twelve months.
At $49,000 of net profit, a single filer is about 313% of the 2026 poverty guideline of $15,650 — inside subsidy range, which runs to 400%, or $62,600. Before comparing, subtract half your self-employment tax: $49,000 × 0.9235 × 0.153 is roughly $6,924, so about $3,462 comes off, along with your premiums.
Winter Is Not a Coverage Gap
A build season that ends in October does not mean four months without insurance. Coverage runs by plan year, not by working season, and dropping it in November leaves you unable to re-enter until the next open enrollment. Ladder and saw injuries do not observe the season either.
Material Price Swings Change Net, Not Just Gross
Lumber and composite decking prices move sharply, and a year of high material costs can leave revenue flat while net profit falls. Since subsidies run on net profit, that is a real change to report — and reporting it downward raises your credit for the remaining months.
Permits, Inspections and the Dead Weeks
Deck work stalls on permitting and inspection more than most trades, and those weeks are unpaid. A season that looks like six working months on paper is often closer to five once the waiting is counted.
Build the estimate off completed jobs from last season rather than the calendar, then adjust. Two builders in the same town with the same crew size can finish very different numbers of jobs depending on how their municipality schedules inspections.
Deducting the Premium
With net self-employment profit and no employer plan available through a spouse, 100% of premiums come off on Schedule 1, Line 17, above the line, up to net self-employment income.
If you are about to take on seasonal help and are unsure what it changes, call (713) 575-9904.