Self Employment Tax Lawyers in Charlottesville
In the U.S., Charlottesville, Virginia included, almost everyone who is employed during most of their adult life is suitable for Social Security and Medicare benefits when they retire. These programs are supported by taxes deducted from the paychecks of most employees.
Individuals who are self-employed are still responsible for these taxes, and are responsible for figuring out how much they owe.
Typically, it's the employer who does all the calculations, determining 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 ensure that your figures are accurate.
Self-Employment tax obligations in Charlottesville, Virginia
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.
But, self-employed workers in Charlottesville, Virginia must make both the employee and employer contributions. Thus, this means that the Medicare and Social Security tax liabilities apply doubly to the self-employed.
Currently, the self-employment tax rate in the United States is 15.30% of all income earned from self-employment in Charlottesville, Virginia. 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 Charlottesville, Virginia Tax Attorney Help?
If you are self-employed in Charlottesville, 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.
If you have any difficulty calculating your self-employment tax liability, an efficient Charlottesville, Virginia 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.