Self Employment Tax Lawyers in Morris County

In Morris County, New Jersey, a few different taxes are placed on employees, and subtracted from their gross pay during each pay period. The examples that most people are familiar with are the taxes imposed to fund Medicare and Social Security, which get their funding mostly from these relatively small pay deductions.

It's essentiall 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 exactly how much you owe.

Typically, the employer makes all the necessary calculations and deductions from a person's paycheck. If you are self-employed, however, you are required to make this determination, and to ensure that it's accurate.

Self-Employment tax obligations in Morris County, New Jersey

If you own a sole-proprietorship, or work primarily as an independent contractor, you need to pay the "self-employment tax" if you derive any significant amount of income from self-employment. You must pay these taxes if your income from self-employment is more than annually.

For people who are employed by another person or company, the employer usually matches the employee's contributions to Medicare and Social Security. This effectively 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 Morris County, New Jersey are responsible for making the employer AND employee contributions to those programs, effectively doubling what they would have to pay if they were employed by someone else.

Self-employed workers in Morris County, New Jersey 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 effectively 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 Morris County, New Jersey Tax Attorney Help?

If you work for yourself in Morris County, you have to stay on top of your self-employment taxes, to avoid facing serious legal and financial issues later on. This means you need to keep excellent records of all your income and expenses, in case you need to seek the advice of a tax attorney: the more information you can provide your lawyer, the better he or she can help you.

That said, if you are having trouble figuring out exactly how much self-employment tax you owe in Morris County, New Jersey, a competent tax attorney shouldn't have any trouble helping you on that front. Likewise, if you end up in a dispute with the government over your self-employment tax obligation, a good tax attorney can give you the best possible chance of getting a favorable result.