Independent Contractors ARE Home Business owners
Here's an article by a woman to blogs about "working at home, home businesses" and she makes a common mistake when she says that independent contractors are not necessarily Home Business owners. Of course they are... or should be.
An independent contractor is a sole proprietor of his or her freelance business, whether it's being a medical biller, typist or headhunter, as Jill Hart mentioned, or a programmer or engineer - if you're not an employee, and you're providing services for someone else, and you're deducting your business expenses, and declaring your income on your Schedule C - hello - you're a Home Business owner. And it's the failure to realize this that gets businesses in trouble.
If people persist in thinking of independent contractors as employees without payroll taxes, well the government is going to persist in reclassifying them, and rightly so. Not to mention if an IC starts to think of him or herself as a business owner, not merely a freelance whatever, that shift in mind set will result in making more money.
