2019 Tennessee Code
Title 50 - Employer and Employee
Chapter 7 - Tennessee Employment Security Law
Part 2 - Definitions
§ 50-7-206. “Employing unit” defined -- Common paymaster.

(a) “Employing unit” means any individual or type of organization, including any partnership, association, trust, estate, joint stock company, insurance company, limited liability company or corporation, whether domestic or foreign, or the receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, trustee or successor of the individual or organization, or the legal representative of a deceased person, that has or subsequent to January 1, 1935, had, in its employ one (1) or more individuals performing services for the person or entity within this state; or the state, or any department, political subdivision, county or municipality of the state that has in its employ one (1) or more individuals performing services for it within this state.

(b) All individuals performing services within this state for any employing unit that maintains two (2) or more separate establishments within this state shall be deemed to be employed by a single employing unit for all the purposes of this chapter.

(c) Each individual employed to perform or to assist in performing the work of any agent or employee of an employing unit shall be deemed to be employed by the employing unit for all the purposes of this chapter, whether the individual was hired or paid directly by the employing unit or by the agent or employee; provided, that the employing unit had actual or constructive knowledge of the performance of the work.

(d) Common Paymaster. For purposes of this chapter, if two (2) or more related corporations concurrently employ the same individual and compensate the individual through a common paymaster that is one of the corporations, each corporation shall be considered to have paid as remuneration to the individual only the amounts actually disbursed by it to the individual and shall not be considered to have paid as remuneration to the individual amounts actually disbursed to the individual by another of the corporations.