Self Employment Tax Lawyers in Old Bridge
In Old Bridge, 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 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.
Normally, 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 Old Bridge, 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 substantial amount of income from self-employment. You must pay these taxes if your income from self-employment is more than annually.
Employees in a regular employer/employee relationship do enjoy one substantial perk that the self-employed do not: their Social Security and Medicare contributions are matched by their employers. So, if you pay in Social Security and Medicare taxes with every paycheck, your employer has to match that. This essentially doubles your contribution to these programs, without doubling their financial burden on you.
However, if you are self-employed in Old Bridge, New Jersey, you are responsible to pay both the employee and employer share of the employment tax. Essentially, this means that the employment tax for self-employed individuals is double what it would be for regular employees.
The self-employment tax rate is 15.3% of all self-employment income, assuming your income from self-employment exceeds per year in Old Bridge, New Jersey. 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 Old Bridge, New Jersey Tax Attorney Help?
If you are self-employed in Old Bridge, it's extremely important for you to be diligent in keeping records of your income and expenses, to ensure that you pay all the self-employment taxes that you owe (and also to make sure you don't over-pay). You may one day need a tax attorney to advise you with a legal issue, and they can help you far more effectively if you are able to quickly provide them with all the relevant information.
Anyone having difficulty with figuring out what they owe in self-employment taxes in Old Bridge, New Jersey 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.