Question

How do you deduct self-employment tax as a business expense?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
April 7, 2022
1 reply
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If the self-employment tax rate is 15.3% of net earnings, where can I deduct this? Does Turbo Tax do it automatically when you file as self-employed?

TurboTax Self Employed Online

JohnB5677

If you are self-employed, and you pay other people you can deduct the employees' business portion of the self-employment tax under

Income & Expenses
Self-employment income and expenses
Select your business
If necessary Add Expenses
Taxes and licenses (Note: additional pages are available at the bottom.)

If you are trying to deduct your self-employment tax on your business return, you can not. However, one half of self-employment tax is deductible on you personal tax return.

Edited 02/17/2024

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B

Bucee

You should be able to deduct 1/2 of SE taxes. IRS Topic No. 554. Please update this

VolvoGirl

Turbo Tax automatically calculates the self employment tax and takes the deduction. You don't get a deduction for it on Schedule C .

You pay Self Employment tax (Scheduled SE) on a Net Profit of $400 or more on Schedule C in addition to regular income tax on it. You pay 15.3% SE tax on 92.35% of your Net Profit (If it is 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.

The SE tax will be automatically included in your tax due or reduce your refund. It is on the 1040 Schedule 2 line 4 which goes to 1040 line 23. The SE tax is in addition to your regular income tax on the net profit. You do get to take off the 50% ER portion of the SE tax as an adjustment on 1040 Schedule 1 line 15 which flows to 1040 line 10.

The SE tax includes what you already paid in from your W2s so your schedule SE tax will only be the difference up to the max amount of $9,932.40 for social security. The max income for social security for 2023 is $160,200 between W2 wages and the schedule C Net Profit. If you also have W2 income, you have to break out the Social Security and Medicare taxes. Only the Social Security part maxes out.

For 2023 the max for Social Security is $9,932.40 on $160,200 of wages (160,200 x 6.2%).

Medicare is 2.9% (both er & ee parts) of all wages and 92.35% of Schedule C Net Profit - no max.

You are paying 15.3% for……

SS for employer 6.2% (up to 160,200 wages & profit)

SS for employee 6.2% (up to 160,200 wages & profit)

Medicare for employer 1.45% (on all wages & profit, no max)

Medicare for employee 1.45% (on all wages & profit, no max)