A good friend of mine owns a Jani-King cleaning franchise and my wife has been employed by him for a couple of years. Starting last year my wife started doing it full-time. I have a couple of questions…

1. We have received about ,000.00 in income during 2007 and have not paid any taxes on that income. What kind of percentage of that income can we expect to pay?

2. Her boss provides all of the supplies, however we use one of our personal vehicle to go from job site to job site. I know she drives approximately 250 miles each week. Can we deduct the mileage as business expense as long as we know what the daily amount is (we have kept track).

3. Should I look at any other deductions?

I know there will be people that will say that we need to speak to an accountant, and we intend to. I am just looking for a little education before we meet with one.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.
I should have clarified the section about my income. I work for an employer (city government) and our total household income was about 53K including the 12K we made as a contractor.

my boss runs his own business. I know that health insurance is expensive, but was wondering if I could get health insurance through him. Are there any health insurance companies that work with business owners to get benefits for their employees? Could it possibly be a tax write off or deduction if he got me health insurance? I certainly do not make enough money to have insurance on my own, but do not qualify for any help from the gov’t.

Any websites on information about this would be helpful so I could put together a little package to show him. I’d like to ask him about it within the next few weeks. Thanks!!

Here’s the situation. My boss has been paying me under the table for the past few weeks (I have been working there for the past few weeks). I work for a small business that he is the owner of. His tax accountant’s computer is fried and cannot input new data. It was fried before I started working there. So I haven’t filled out any forms yet and he’s been paying me the full hourly wage without any deductions because well, he can’t. My question is: when the accountant’s computer is back up and running and I fill out the taxforms, will I be forced to pay back the money that I made that wasn’t deducted? Like, will I have to pay him the difference? Is he legally allowed to do that?

Please answer as best you can.

I keep reading these comments here that claim that Obama will raise taxes on corporations, which will cause companies to shut down, and people to get laid off etc..

So here is a little information from someone who is quasi-literate in such affairs. First of all Obama is not talking about raising corporate taxes, which are very different from income tax. Obama wants to raise income tax (not corporate tax or capital gains tax) on families that make more than 250 thousand dollars a year. So your boss, who probably makes more than that, would want to get paid a little more so he can offset the higher tax that he would have to pay. The increase will come from the PRE-TAX profit of the company that you are working for. More a company pays in salaries the less it pays in tax as the salary, being an expense, is tax deductable. So in other words that tax that would otherwise be paid by the company is now paid by the individual (your boss). So why the whole drama? The answer is actually simple. Corporations have found a lot of loop holes in tax laws and they never pay the taxes that they are supposed to pay. The individuals on the other hand have to pay straight forward taxes based on W2s which some deductions.

So raising your boss’s tax rate is not going to effect your job or the health of the company you work for. Just the tax system will become better and more stream-lined.

I have tried to explain this as simply as possible. I know some of you are going to ask for sources, but you are no websites that will tell it to you in one paragraph. It is common sense if you want to understand it.

In August my fiancee and I started working for an employer that pays us with a business account check but doesn’t take out any taxes. We know come tax season things are going to get confusing so we’re trying to get some things cleared up now.

I’m assuming the best way to file would be as an independent contractor since we work from home and because of the way he pays us.

My real question is what counts as deductions. We work from home but we both have offices that we could go to if we needed to. I’m at home about 99% of the time working and my fiancee about 80% of the time. Can we count a portion of our home as a deduction? And is this only if you own not if you rent?

Also we both use internet 100% of the time we are home on the job. We would have internet even if we weren’t working from home and when we’re not working we use it for personal use. Could we count a percentage of the internet as a deduction.

The same goes with cell phones. We both have PDA’s that we use to communicate with our boss and other business associates we must talk with. But we also have them for personal use. Percentage?

We also obviously use our own personal computers but they were purchased a few years ago and are used for personal use as well. Could we count a percentage of the depreciated value of them as a deduction.

I need to buy a new computer for personal and business use but I haven’t yet… Would it count?

My fiancee uses our car for business trips and is reimbursed by our employer for gas and mileage. The car is also used for personal use.

I know this is a lot of questions but we’re both clueless as to what we need to do. We’re probably going to pay someone to do our taxes at least this year. I’m quite worried about all this since I’ve heard that as an independent contractor you must pay back about 15% of your net pay… That’s… a lot.

Anyway, any help with this would be appreciated. I’m browsing trying to find some information on my own but I’m not really used to how they word things so I end up getting confused and frustrated.

Thanks in advance.

I raise animals as a hobby but my boss says that I might be able to claim it as a small busines or a hobby business and get deductions next year on taxes. I raise several breeds of livestock not exactly to mak a profit but I could with a few minor tweeks to how I operate. He said something about being able to get 28% of the money I pay on feed back. Does anyone know anything about this?