DawnC
Employee Tax Expert

Self employed

No, TurboTax is talking about two different taxes.  It means you do not have any taxable income, so your income tax is 0.   But self-employment tax does not depend on your taxable income.  Instead it is applied to your net business income/profit.   Why am I paying self-employment tax?

 

If your total net business income is 10K (after business expenses) - you would not have a tax liability since your standard deduction would reduce your income to zero.   But you would still owe the self-employment tax on the 10K.    Self-employment tax and income tax are two separate taxes. You can owe self-employment tax even if you don't need to pay income tax.

 

The self-employment tax (officially known as the SECA tax for Self-Employment Contributions Act tax) is the self-employed person's version of the FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) tax paid by employers and employees for Social Security and Medicare, and it's due on 92.35% of your net earnings from self-employment.

 

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