Self Employment Tax Lawyers in College Park
In College Park, Maryland, some taxes are placed on employees, and deducted from their paychecks. Most people are aware of the Medicare and Social Security taxes - which fund those two programs by taking a small percentage of every paycheck an employee receives.
It's imperativel 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 precisely how much you owe.
Most frequently, 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 precisely what you owe.
Self-Employment tax obligations in College Park, Maryland
If you work as an independent contractor, or operate a sole proprietorship, you are deemed to be "self employed." You are obliged to pay the self-employment tax if your total income from self-employment exceeds per year.
For people who are employed by another person or company, the employer typically matches the employee's contributions to Medicare and Social Security. This essentially means that, when you look at your Medicare and Social Security tax statements on your paychecks, you can know that those programs are actually getting double what's shown there - with your employer covering the other half.
However, the self-employed in College Park, Maryland are responsible for making the employer AND employee contributions to those programs, essentially doubling what they would have to pay if they were employed by someone else.
Self-employed workers in College Park, Maryland pay a self-employment tax rate of 15.3% of their income that's derived from self-employment. However, half of whatever they end up paying in self-employment tax is deductible from income tax. This essentially creates a tax deduction of nearly 8% of one's income, requiring you to only pay taxes on 92% of what you earn. Additional tax deductions may lower that number further. When this deduction is taken into account, the self-employment tax rate is effectively 14%, as opposed to over 15%.
Can a College Park, Maryland Tax Attorney Help?
If you are self-employed in College Park, it's imperative that you keep good records of your income and expenses, because a tax attorney will only be able to advise you to the extent that you help yourself.
Anyone having difficulty with figuring out what they owe in self-employment taxes in College Park, Maryland should seek the assistance of a knowledgeable tax attorney. Most tax attorneys also have a good familiarity of accounting, so making this determination probably won't be too hard for them. And on top of that, a skilled tax attorney can give you objective and useful legal advice, which can help prevent more severe issues from rising in the future.