Self Employment Tax Lawyers in Cleveland
In Cleveland, Ohio, a few different taxes are enforced on employees, and subtracted from their gross pay during each pay period. The examples that most people are acquainted with are the taxes imposed to fund Medicare and Social Security, which get their funding mostly from these relatively small pay deductions.
But what if you're self-employed? You're still obligated to pay these taxes, since you will also be qualified for those retirement programs. It's also your responsibility to determine what your tax liability is.
Normally, it's the employer who does all the calculations, deciding what deductions need to be made from a worker's paycheck to cover his or her tax liability. But if you are your own boss, you have to do this, and confirm that your figures are accurate.
Self-Employment tax obligations in Cleveland, Ohio
If you mainly work as an independent contractor, or are the owner of a sole proprietorship, you have to pay what's usually referred to as the "self-employment tax," if your annual income from self-employment is over .
Workers who are employed by someone else enjoy at least one perk that the self-employed do not: their employer matches their Social Security and Medicare contributions, basically doubling the amount of money that's contributed to these funds on the employee's behalf.
But, the self-employed in Cleveland, Ohio 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.
Currently, the self-employment tax rate in the United States is 15.30% of all income earned from self-employment in Cleveland, Ohio. Nonetheless, half of your hypothetical self-employment tax liability can be deducted from your income. This means that you only pay self-employment tax on about 92% of your income, which creates an effective self-employment tax rate of just over 14%.
Can a Cleveland, Ohio Tax Attorney Help?
If you're self-employed in Cleveland, 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 simpler 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 Cleveland, Ohio should seek the help of a seasoned 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 significant issues from forming in the future.