Self Employment Tax Lawyers in Davis County

In the U.S., including in Davis County, Utah, taxes are placed on employees, which are typically deducted from their paychecks. The ones that most people are familiar with are the Medicare and Social Security taxes. The idea is that workers pay into these programs during their entire working lives, and then enjoy the benefits they provide once they retire.

But what if you're self-employed? You're still obliged to pay these taxes, since you will also be eligible for those retirement programs. It's also your responsibility to determine what your tax liability is.

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 Davis County, Utah

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 higher than per year.

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're self employed in Davis County, Utah, or anywhere else, you are obliged to make the employee AND employer contributions to Social Security and Medicare, essentially doubling your employment tax liability.

Currently, the self-employment tax rate in the United States is 15.30% of all income earned from self-employment in Davis County, Utah. However, 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 Davis County, Utah Tax Attorney Help?

If you work for yourself in Davis County, you have to stay on top of your self-employment taxes, to avoid facing significant legal and financial issues later on. This means you need to keep reliable 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.

If you have any difficulty calculating your self-employment tax liability, an efficient Davis County, Utah tax attorney would probably have very little trouble helping you figure it out. A knowledgeable lawyer can also give you practical legal advice, which can help you avoid more severe tax law issues in the future, by dealing with them before they become problematic.