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Sole trader invoice template for Personnel

hey everyone sherman the cpa here today i'm going to help you save on taxes by helping you understand how taxes work for sole proprietorships if you are an independent contractor freelancer business owner or earn any money outside of being an employee then this video was made for you we are going to discuss what a sole proprietor is how they file taxes the type of taxes they pay and some tips to help you minimize the amount of taxes you will pay as a sole proprietor so if you are ready please do me a favor by liking this video and make sure you are subscribed to our channel for even more ways to save on taxes all right so what is a sole proprietorship a sole proprietorship is an unincorporated business owned by one person which means if you are not incorporated as an llc or corporation or doing business as a partnership then you are a sole proprietor by default or to put it another way if you earn any money other than investment income or w-2 wages then you are a sole proprietor this applies to freelancers independent contractors influencers uber and lyft drivers or anyone who earns money independently from an employer one key difference between sole proprietors and w-2 employees is in how tax withholdings are conducted when you are an employee taxes are withheld from your paycheck before you even get paid but when you are a sole proprietor taxes are not withheld and are paid when you file your tax return because of this key difference when you file your taxes as a sole proprietor you will typically owe money which surprises many business owners when they file their taxes for the first time but obviously this would not be you because you're watching this video so again if you earn money that is not related to an incorporated business or a job in which your payments are subject to withholding taxes then you are a sole proprietor now let's go ahead and talk about how to file your taxes as a sole proprietor as a sole proprietor the irs views you as your business there is no separation for tax purposes you are what is referred to as a disregarded entity which means the money you earn in your business is treated as your personal income when you file your taxes and because of this key distinction this means that you do not have to abide by the business tax return deadlines which is typically march 15th instead you will get an extra month to file your taxes by the personal deadline of april 15th and when you file your taxes you will report your business income on schedule c which is a schedule that you will need to include when you file your personal tax return now let's talk about how your business income is actually reported on your tax return alright so when you are an employee you will typically receive a w-2 form at the end of the tax year but when you are a sole proprietor you should receive a 10.99 form at the end of the tax year which simply shows the money you earn from your business by a particular customer or a client now i say that you should receive a 1099 form because sometimes you will not receive one since many businesses fail to issue this form to their vendors but either way you are required to report the income you earned from your business to the irs when you file your tax return therefore it is very important that you keep up with your business books throughout the year so that you can easily keep track of your business income now there are two main things you need to report on your schedule c and it is very important that you don't miss either one of these things number one you must report the business income you receive this includes all money you received from delivering goods or services and number two expenses you should report all ordinary and necessary expenses you incurred to operate your business one of the biggest tax mistakes we see sole proprietors make is that they failed to insert their expenses on their tax return which effectively lowers their taxable income and therefore the amount of taxes that they actually have to pay you do not have to pay taxes on the revenue your business earns or on the amount you received as a 1099 instead you pay taxes on that amount minus all expenses you can deduct you should pay taxes on your profits not your revenue or cash receipts from your customers or clients for example let's say you are a freelancer that earned ten thousand dollars from ten different clients and all of those clients issued you a 1099 form in which case you are required to report that to the irs when you file your return so you made 100 000 here and you would insert this amount on your schedule c as income but as you insert this income on your tax return you start to notice the amount of taxes you owe are skyrocketing but wait you're not finished yet you need to add all of your expenses like advertising office expenses travel expenses and more as deductions on your schedule c let's say in this case all of your expenses total up to be seventy five thousand dollars well in this case you would only pay taxes on twenty five thousand dollars in profits and not one hundred thousand dollars in income if this was your only income source your tax bracket would drop from 24 to 12 and you would only pay a fraction of the taxes you would have owed if you did not include your expenses on your tax return so that is how you would go about filing your taxes on schedule c now let's discuss the type of taxes you will pay as a sole proprietor the three main types of taxes you will pay as a sole proprietor are federal income taxes state income taxes and self-employment taxes now federal income taxes are normally the largest tax expense with tax rates of up to 37 percent depending on your income level state taxes on the other hand are normally the smallest tax expense you would have out of the three which typically range from five to ten percent depending on the state that you live in and self-employment taxes are the taxes that shocks most sole proprietors it is an additional 15.3 tax on your business income which is meant to cover both the employer and employee portions of medicare and social security taxes that are required in an employer employee relationship by the way there are ways you can get around this tax so make sure that you are subscribed to our channel for more information on that but first let's discuss estimated quarterly tax payments as a sole proprietor you are required to make estimated tax payments if you expect to owe 1 000 or more in taxes when your return is filed and there are two ways you can go about handling this number one pay one hundred percent of the tax payments you made last year on a quarterly basis this year so if you own ten thousand dollars in taxes last year you would just submit twenty five hundred dollars each quarter this year or number two pay 90 of what your tax liability will be this year now in order to do this you will need to estimate your income tax deductions and tax credits for the current year to arrive at the amount of taxes that you will owe now i personally prefer to pay 100 of the tax payments i made last year as a simple rule of thumb the only time i would deviate from this is if i expect to pay significantly less in taxes this year in that case it might make more sense to only make estimated tax payments on what i think i'd actually owe anyway let me know what you think about this video in the comments below and as always thank you for watching