Self Employment Tax Lawyers in Pensacola
In Pensacola, Florida, there are particular taxes that are placed on employees, which are deducted from their paychecks. The generally well-known employment taxes are the Medicare and Social Security tax, for which a small percentage of every employee's paycheck is deducted.
It's necessaryl to be aware of one fact: if you're self-employed, you still have to pay these taxes. And it's your responsibility (or the responsibility of someone you hire for this purpose) to figure out clearly how much you owe.
Most commonly, employers handle all of these calculations. With regular salaried and hourly employees, this is an easy process, and any decent payroll computer software can do it automatically. However, if you work for yourself, it is your responsibility to figure out clearly what you owe.
Self-Employment tax obligations in Pensacola, Florida
If you are an independent contractor, or run a sole proprietorship (a company which you own, and which is not incorporated as a separate legal entity), you must pay the so-called "self-employment tax" if your income from self-employment is larger than per year.
Individuals who are not self-employed, and work for another person or company, have their contributions to Medicare and Social Security matched by their employers. This means that these programs are acquiring, on your behalf, twice as much money as what's deducted for your paycheck, with your employer covering the other half.
However, the self-employed in Pensacola, Florida are responsible for making the employer AND employee contributions to those programs, basically doubling what they would have to pay if they were employed by someone else.
The self-employment tax rate is 15.3% of all self-employment income, assuming your income from self-employment exceeds per year in Pensacola, Florida. But half of your self-employment tax liability can be deducted from your income tax. This results in a slightly lower income tax bill, which partially offsets this additional tax burden. It essentially means that the self-employment tax only applies to 92% of your income, as opposed to all of it. This means that your effective self-employment tax rate is about 14%, as opposed to over 15%.
Can a Pensacola, Florida Tax Attorney Help?
If you're self-employed in Pensacola, you need to keep complete records of all your income and expenses from the operation of your business. This will make it much easier for you to calculate your taxes when they come due, and it will make it easier for a tax attorney to give you good, useful advice, should you eventually need it.
Anyone having difficulty with figuring out what they owe in self-employment taxes in Pensacola, Florida should seek the help of a brilliant tax attorney. Most tax attorneys also have a good understanding of accounting, so making this determination probably won't be too hard for them. And on top of that, a qualified tax attorney can give you objective and useful legal advice, which can help prevent more severe issues from forming in the future.