No, you cannot avoid the Self-Employment taxes. All income that one receives for any services provided is income which is subject to employment taxes of FICA and Medicare. Typically, the employee pays 1/2 of the employment taxes and the employer pays the other 1/2. But, when you are doing the work on a contractor type basis and receive a 1099 MISC, none of the employment taxes has been paid, therefore the "self-employment taxes" (SE Tax) will be added to your taxes due for the year. TurboTax reports this SE tax on Schedule SE and also calculate the deduction that goes along with it.
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