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TIPS FOR FREELANCERS AND THE SELF-EMPLOYED:
How to Lower Your 1099 Tax Bill
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You can lower your income tax
Taxes are no fun when you are a freelancer, a self-employed individual or a 1099 contractor. You have to navigate through heaps of statements and paperwork just to confirm the tax you owe and then make the payment.
Although the IRS provides instructions, you won't find an IRS billboard pointing you to ways to reduce, lower or completely eliminate your 1099 tax bill. That’s what FlyFin is for. Here we bring you five ways to lower your 1099 income.
Table of contents
The basics of a 1099 worker...Read more
How to reduce your 1099 taxes...Read more
How to deduct your self-employment tax from your income tax...Read more
Take Qualified Business Income deductions to lower your tax...Read more
How can a Retirement Plan Help You Save on 1099 income?...Read more
How can you avoid paying 1099 taxes?...Read more
The basics of a 1099 worker
Unlike a W-2 worker, self-employed workers need to ensure what they owe, pay their own taxes and file the IRS returns. If you are an independent contractor or self-employed individual, you should usually get a 1099 form from your employer. This employer could be anything from an online application like Postmates, Uber or Lyft, or it could be a company like Apple or Tesla that you freelance for.
When it comes to filing taxes, you should always be on the lookout for ways to lower taxes on your 1099 income. A 1099 income could be any income you make outside of your full-time work.
If you work as a part-time freelancer, you’ll get a 1099 form from the company that you work with. You may also work as a full-time self-employed individual and get a 1099 form.
The IRS has set the threshold for filing 1099 income tax returns at $400. So you’re required to file income tax returns if you earn $400 or more as 1099 income.
For example, if you earn $30,000 from your full-time employer and $400 from your freelance activities, you’ll have to file a tax return on your 1099 income and pay the taxes on the $400 separately.
Unlike W-2 employees, who only have to pay taxes once their income exceeds the $12,000 threshold of the standard deduction, 1099 contractors have to report their income starting from $400.
As a 1099 contractor, you pay more taxes than a full-time employee because you pay the full 15.3% in FICA taxes, which employers normally split with employees.
A W-2 employee has half of this 15.3% share contributed by the employer. As a self-employed individual, you don’t have this privilege. So you need to smarten up technologically for your taxes, and A.I.-enabled platforms like FlyFin have a massive role in saving you big on taxes.
Quick tip
If you use FlyFin, you can cut out manual labor since the smart application finds business expenses automatically.
How to reduce your 1099 taxes
Starting by minimizing your tax bill, always keep track of all your business expenses for deductions. You can write-off all qualifying business expenses from your tax bill. For example, if you are a freelance delivery driver you can keep track of:
- Your business mileage
- Keep you fuel bills from trips
- Toll payments
- Parking slips
- Vehicle maintenance expenses
- Delivery vehicle depreciation costs
- Vehicle insurance expenses
How to deduct your self-employment tax from your income tax
You can deduct a massive chunk off your self-employment tax because you’re also an employer. When the IRS requires you to pay 15.3% in FICA taxes, you can declare half of that amount as a write-off from your self-employment tax amount.
It’s similar to a company paying its share of 7.65% as FICA tax and then declaring this as a business expense in the IRS return. The IRS also has a provision to include this by default in your Schedule SE. If you accidentally miss including it, the IRS will send you a refund after informing you of the mistake.
Take Qualified Business Income deductions to lower your tax
QBI is the pass-through income you make as a self-employed individual. The QBI deduction is available for eligible individuals like freelancers, 1099 contractors and business owners.
You can lower your taxable income by as much as 20% using QBI, but you can’t lower your self-employment tax. To lower your self-employment tax, you need to use business write-offs, as mentioned above.
To find the business write-offs, you can connect FlyFin to your bank statement and find all deductions automatically.
How can a Retirement Plan Help You Save on 1099 income?
The IRS likes when you save for retirement and has some deductions that help you lower your tax bill. You can avail any one of the following three options in this infographic:
Although you’ll pay taxes if you ever wish to use your retirement plan, it's a good way to save money that could take care of you in the future.
How can you avoid paying 1099 taxes?
All you have to do is stop being taxed as a self-employed person. If your income is high enough, you can create an S Corporation. The progressive U.S. tax system charges you more if you earn more.
So if you are earning more than $100,000 every tax year, you better register your company as an S-Corp. This will allow you to set your own reasonable salary and the remaining amount could be the company profits.
For instance, if you set the salary at $80,000, the remaining sum can be declared as your company’s profit. Although you’ll have to pay taxes on company profits, it will be less than the sum if you filed as a self-employed individual.
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! It tracks all your business expenses automatically using A.I. to find every possible tax deduction.
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.
Download the FlyFin app and have your taxes filed in less than fifteen minutes, saving time and more money on your taxes than last year, guaranteed.
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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