How to do I calculate my self-employment tax?

Collin Pelfrey: I work for my husband and I get paid $500.00/wk. How do I calculate how much I should be saving to pay my own taxes?

Rana Rudell: S/E tax is figured on your business profit before income tax just like Social Security is figured on wages before income tax.

Clemente Schoeck: 1. On income of $100,000 the federal tax for single status with standard deduction is $19102.2. SE tax is payable on $100,000.3. For making estimated tax payments, if you pay 100% of tax on your 2009 tax return, you are OK.

Clemmie Burkleo: if your Sch C 'net' amount is $100000 the se tax would be $14130no, you don't deduct your income tax from your Chalf of your se tax is a credit to reduce your gross income

Whitley Leopold: Self employment tax is figured from the net amount earned from self employment. If your net self employment income is $100,000 then your self employment tax is based on that $100,000. Use Schedule SE to figure self employment tax.

Dee! Depung: I'll pass on the SE tax as others have addressed that properly. I'll focus on your obvious misunderstanding of how tax brackets work. If you're single, $100k would put you in the 28% bracket, but that does NOT mean that your tax would be $28,000. The tax rates apply to the income at the bracket point and above only. Income below that point is taxed at the lower amount for the lower bracket. The first $9,350 is taxed at 0% because of your personal exemption and the standard deduction. The next $8,375 is taxed at 10%. The next $23,625 is taxed at 15% and the next $48,400 at 25%. As a result, the tax on $100k of self-employment income (assuming that you're single and use the standard deduction) would be around $17,100, not $28,000.Additionally, you deduct half of the self-employment tax from your net profit before figuring your taxable income so that further reduces your income tax. I took that into consideration when doing the cocktail napkin estimate of you! r tax. Including the self-employment tax, your total hit on $! 100k would be around $31,200....Show more