I have been working as an Independent Contractor for my employer as of 9/11/08. I didn’t have a paycheck by the 9/15 so I will be paying my income from 9/11 on by the 01/15/09 quarterly pay date for small businesses. By the end of the year I will have earned about ,400 from this job. The only deduction I have is about for transportation.

I also held another job earlier in the year from which I earned about 0. Social Security and Medicare were witheld, but not income tax. Altogether I will have earned under the ,200 limit for the entire year of 2008.

What I am unsure of is if I still need to pay income tax. My quarterly earnings are such that I would have earned a taxable amount had I earned that much every quarter, so I am confused about that.

Also, how much of the 15.3% SS&M do I need to pay? I’ve seen literature talking about how half of Social Security and Medicare is usually paid by employers, half of it can be deducted from net earnings…it’s all very very confusing to me.

If anyone can give me an answer, or clarify this that’d be great. I’m not in the market for consultants (I already know some.)

I worked for a small business from June 09 to Oct 09.
I never filled out a W4 while working there. Also, my checks never came with a stub.
I always just got a check written out from their personal account. I know from the amounts of
the checks that deductions were being taken out. At the time I trusted them and didn’t do anything about it.
The business was obviously shoddily run and I had a lot of problems with them. I should have amended that situation earlier, but I didn’t even want to deal with them anymore at the time.
I know it’s still early, but I haven’t gotten a W2 yet and cannot get in touch with anyone from the business to request one.
What can I do if I don’t get a W2 form from them?
Can I still file if I don’t have pay stubs? I have no idea exactly what they took out for taxes.
My checks were always what I expected them to be after taxes, SS, etc were taken out as compared to other jobs where I made the same hourly wage.

I was definitely on their payroll during this time and legally should get a W2. I know this because I filed an unemployment claim. The employer appealed, but an UE judge ruled in my favor and I qualified. I am sure that decision didn’t make the employer very happy, but they still have to give me a W2.
Maybe it will still come before the 15th.

I didn’t know until I looked on the MN Dept. of Labor website today that legally they had to issue a paystub at the end of every pay period.
I could go on and on about the things that go on in that place.

My husband has been with the same employer for 15 years. They started with over 50 employees and today they are down to just the owner and my husband. My husband has been managing the business and working and getting a set salary. The owner does not want to shut down the business but the overhead is getting high (the rent was raised 5 times higher at Jan 2009 which really hurt). The owner does not want to loose my husband and has offered to give him work and 1099 him, This would mean eliminating insurance, WC, and the high rent. He will lease my husband a company truck (for a month) and refer the work to my husband and pay him has an independent contractor. My husband’s employer gave him extra money to get a business licences. His job currently does not provide any sort of life/health/retirement benefits just a salary. I carry the health coverage and we have a retirement set up privately.

Besides the tax (increased SS and Medicare deductions) is there anything else that is bad about being an independent contractor compared to the previous salary position he had.

Local jobs are hard to come by and we have a disabled child and hate to move. The only other option is a job that is salaried which would mean my husband traveling 3-4 days a week out of town, which would be stressful.
The work has been steady, just the overhead is high. It is the oldest business of its kind in our city and they have alot of repeat customers Ovehead went from 4k a month to 13k and for having one employee 13k a month is alot to pay. They still have average 15k month in profit, but after 13k overhead does not leave enough with 4k it was fine.
One person in our city bought up most of the prime downtown and that is when the rent raised. It took 4 months to get a slightly smaller place but it was still higher rent. The owner also stated that if the situation changed, he would bring him in as a partner or re-instate the salary. I have no reason to not believe the owner. Several times there were smaller financial issues with the company and the owner always paid the employees and did not draw his own salary.

I am a 1099 worker (I am pretty sure I am an employee, but that is a different saga altogether) who has been working for this company for over two years and has always paid her "self-employment" taxes. For two years in a row I have used TurboTax and shelled out a hefty sum to get the "Business Suite" editions. And, my tax bill has never been less than ,600 for a ,000-,000 gross annual income. However, some of my coworkers (who make more than I do per year) use tax preparers who somehow are using the same deductions I claim (auto, medical expenses, school, etc) and yet their tax bills are somewhere around 0 for a larger annual gross income than mine. I am wondering how in the world this is possible, and if it is possible for me to use a tax preparer to somehow amend my last two years’ returns and get my money back.
Please, only people who actually know about this stuff and not just people guessing or being bored and making smart alecky comments. Much appreciated!
As for you, with the "canned response" which is prefaced with a needlessly abbrasive and insulting opener, I am pretty certain I will get fired if I do the SS-8. And seeing that I only make K a year, I don’t really have the time and resources to be unemployed while I go through lawsuits and whatever else. The job market, especially here, sucks and I have not been able to get a new job after aggressively trying for six months. So you can take your canned response and shove it.

My first question is deduction for any employee currently available, and second if made available how would it effect economy. Instead of suggested stimulus offer business full deduction for their portion of SS and Medicare tax paid FOR FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES.

I’m just getting into the business world so I don’t know much about taxes or filing out w-4 forms properly. I’m 19, full time student at the university of colorado and i’m home for the summer working as an intern. I receive hourly pay of .45 with a monthly stipend. My parents are still fully supporting me and I work just to get a little extra money. I got my first pay check today and my father pointed out that I must have filled out my w-4 form incorrectly because I was being taxed federal income taxes, SS, federal medicare, CA income taxes, and CA Vol. Disability. (and well thats a pretty big lump of money if you’re not making much) I figured out that I won’t get any of that money back until I file my tax returns for 07 correct? But when I correct the w-4 what should I put down???