How Self-Employment Taxes Work
Self-employed people and business owners are responsible for paying self-employment tax, also known as SECA taxes. These federal taxes are assessed as a percentage (15.3%) of your income. The Social Security portion has a limit on how much of your income is taxed, whereas the Medicare portion does not.
Millions of Americans will ultimately owe self-employment taxes. Common types of income that are subject to self-employment taxes include:
- Income from home-based businesses (yes, even super-small businesses)
- Income from a business that has not been subjected to payroll taxes
- Income from freelance work
- Income from work as an independent contractor
If you had net earnings from self-employment of $400 or more, or earned $108.28 or more as a church employee, the IRS requires that you file a form SE with your 1040 to report your income.
Self-employment taxes in 2016 and 2017
The table below shows tax rates paid by the self-employed. Pay particular attention to income limitations, which apply to Social Security taxes, but not Medicare taxes.
|
Type of Taxes |
2016 Tax Year |
2017 Tax Year |
|---|---|---|
|
Social Security (OASDI) |
12.4% on up to $118,500 of income |
12.4% on up to $127,200 of income |
|
Medicare |
2.9% on all income |
2.9% on all income |
Truthfully, "self-employment taxes" is something of a misnomer. Every worker pays these taxes in one way or another. People who work as W-2 employees pay Social Security taxes, too. They pay half the rate (6.2% for Social Security, and 1.45% for Medicare), and their employer kicks in the other half.
Because self-employed people are effectively the workerandthe employer, they have to pay both sides of the tax. (When talking about employed people who receive a W-2, these taxes are called "FICA" taxes instead of "SECA" taxes, which refers to self-employment taxes.)
Image source: Getty Images.
Calculating your self-employment tax
Suppose your business generated $100,000 in earnings that you reported on a Schedule C. When you move this figure to Form SE to calculate your taxable self-employment net income, you'd multiply this figure by 0.9235 to arrive at $92,350. This is the amount that will be used to calculate your self-employment taxes.
Using this $92,350 figure, I calculated the amount you would pay in Social Security and Medicare taxes.
|
Tax Type |
2017 Rate |
Amount Due |
|---|---|---|
|
Social Security |
12.4% |
$11,451.40 |
|
Medicare |
2.9% |
$2,678.15 |
|
Total |
15.3% |
$14,129.55 |
Self-employment taxes can be a doozy, but half of the self-employment taxes you pay are deductible on a 1040, thus potentially saving you money on federal income taxes.
In this case, the above example person who reported $92,350 in self-employment income could deduct half the $14,129.55 in self-employment taxes from his income ($7,064.78), saving him about $1,766.19 in federal income taxes in the 25% tax bracket.
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