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A 2024 Guide To Self-Employment Tax Forms And How To File Them
A 2024 Guide To Self-Employment Tax Forms And How To File Them
It’s tax filing time, and you’re self-employed, which means you probably need some tax form info. By the time you get to the end of this page, you'll have all the knowledge you need about self-employment tax forms and how to file your own taxes.
If you happen to be new to working for yourself, you might not be aware that a self-employed person can be an independent contractor, small business owner, a freelancer or a gig worker – the professional possibilities are endless. Having all that freedom and being able to make your own hours also means that you are responsible for paying your self-employment or FICA taxes, all 15.3% of them.
And how do you calculate this? You can use the IRS form Schedule SE, part of the form 1040 for Self-Employed. Remember, this is completely different from federal income tax and state income tax, which you pay based on your tax bracket.
Read on for more about how to do your own taxes.
Key takeaways:
- Self-employed individuals pay the entire 15.3% of FICA taxes, whereas W-2 employees pay only half.
- You can use form Schedule SE to calculate your self-employment taxes.
- FICA tax is paid based on net income.
Table of contents
I’m self-employed, what tax form should I use?
Let us introduce you to the Schedule SE tax form. This is the form you will be using to calculate your self-employment tax. Every taxpayer needs to pay 15.3% in Social Security and Medicare taxes (12.4% for Social Security, and 2.9% for Medicare), and if you're a regular full-time employee, half of that is paid by your employer.
Since the IRS considers self-employed individuals to be both the employer and employee, they pay the full 15.3%. But, they can deduct half of that amount from their taxable income and pay less in taxes.
Your self-employment taxes is based on your earnings in a tax year, which the entities that pay you will report to the IRS on the relevant tax form. You will receive a 1099-NEC from each entity that paid you for work you did (usually by the end of January).
If you received any payment through a third party payment platform, you would receive a 1099-K. You'll get a 1099-MISC if you received any miscellaneous payments. Adding up all the amounts from these forms gives you your gross income for that year.
To calculate your net income, all you have to do is total your business expenses for that year and subtract them from your gross income. If you made $20,000 in gross income, and had $5,000 in business expenses, your net taxable income will be $15,000.
Are business expenses tax deductible?
We mentioned calculating business expenses earlier, and this is where things can get a bit tricky. The IRS lets you deduct these expenses from your gross income (thereby lowering your net income and your tax bill) but only if they are directly related to running your business.
There are two ways to do this. You can either opt for the standard deduction, which is a set number you can deduct from your net income and varies depending on whether you’re filing by yourself or jointly.
You can also opt for an itemized tax deduction which requires you to keep a detailed log of all your business expenses in that year so you can write off specific expenses. This amount will vary from taxpayer to taxpayer, depending on the nature of your work.
If you’re using an app like FlyFin, you can simply link your expenses and let A.I. take care of the rest, scanning for every potential deductible, saving you time and money. CPAs specializing in 1099 taxes also prepare and file your tax returns for you so you never have to worry about tax season again.
Is there another tax form for the self-employed?
One of the most important tax forms is Schedule C because this is where you report those money-saving business deductions you hopefully have many of. You'll subtract these from your gross income.
On Line 31, you will be asked to deduct your expenses from your income to determine whether you have made a net profit or loss for the year. This number is what you’ll be using to calculate your self-employment taxes on Schedule SE. Check out our guide to filling out Schedule SE.
Like doing math about as much as you like filing your taxes? You can use our super-accurate 1099 tax calculator to get a breakdown of how much tax you owe. So, as a self-employed person, when you file your taxes, you'll attach your Schedule C and Schedule SE to your 1040 form.
Just as a refresher, form 1040 is the standard form that every taxpayer fills out to report their annual income and the tax they are required to pay to the IRS.
It's important to remember that self-employed individuals also have to pay estimated taxes every quarter, as the US tax system operates on a pay-as-you-go basis. If you expect to owe $1,000 or more in taxes to the IRS over the course of the year, you’ll need to pay quarterly taxes.
Not sure how much to pay in quarterly estimated taxes? Use our handy quarterly tax calculator to get numbers you rely on.
If this is your first time tackling taxes as a self-employed individual, don’t sweat the learning curve. You'll be fine as long as you have all the information you need, like receipts, invoices and other relevant paperwork before you sit down to fill out your tax forms.
What’s FlyFin?
FlyFin caters to the tax needs of freelancers, gig workers, independent contractors and sole proprietors.
But anyone can file taxes through FlyFin! FlyFin tracks all your business expenses automatically using A.I. technology.
Then, our CPA team files a guaranteed 100% accurate tax return for you – to save you a couple thousand dollars and a ton of time on your taxes.
In addition, you can download the FlyFin app and have your taxes filed in less than fifteen minutes, saving time and money.
Expert tax CPAs ensure 100%-accurate tax filing
A.I. finds every tax deduction, eliminating 95% of your work
On average users save $3,700
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