Independent contractor. My income is $31,733 (from 1099-MISC form). I've claimed 0 expenses. Why is my federal tax $5,951? Shouldn't I be paying in the 12% bracket?

[Lisa995]

Self employment tax is approx. 15% of your net profit.
Then you pay income taxes on that in whatever bracket your total income lands in.

[VolvoGirl · Accepted solution]

You owe about 15.3% self employment tax $4,484 on it in addition to any regular income tax.

Self Employment tax (Scheduled SE) is automatically generated if a person has $400 or more of net profit from self-employment.  You pay 15.3% SE tax on 92.35% of your Net Profit greater than $400.  The 15.3% self employed SE Tax is to pay both the employer part and employee part of Social Security and Medicare.  So you get social security credit for it when you retire.  You do get to take off the 50% ER portion of the SE tax as an adjustment on 1040 Schedule 1 line 27.   The SE tax is already included in your tax due or reduced your refund.  It is on the 1040 Schedule 4 line 57 which goes to 1040 line 14.  The SE tax is in addition to your regular income tax on the net profit.

You can preview the 1040 or print the whole return https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901539-how-do-i-preview-my-turbotax-online-return-before-filing