Amount of Federal taxes paid for the Self-employed

It will depend which tax bracket you are in. You will also have to social security at 12.4% and medicare at 2.9%. Just make sure you claim all of the expenses associated with your self-employment.

One of the best things to do is to call them directly and ask for a booklet so you can slowly read through things, or contact a bookeeper/tax person.

I used to be self-employed and if I remeber correctly, you have to complete a "Schedule C" form listing the gross revenue and expenses for your business. Depending upon the type of business you have you may have to complete some other business related forms (Schedule C will ask for them) such as depreciation if you have depreciable equipment, etc. There is also a form on which you figure your Social Security and Medicare tax amounts - since you are self-employed you have to pay the whole shot paying both the tax as the employee and as an employer which means that your Social Security and Medicare taxes are twice what you would pay as an employee for someone else. When you get to the end of Schedule C you will have an income figure that you will transfer to Form 1040 as your income and then continue from there as you would normally do for your taxes. Also, get the booklets and information from the IRS for small business tax filing information as there are many things that you can legitimately deduct from your business income to reduce it. Since what is left of the business gross income after expenses is what you use for your gross income on Form 1040, the smaller you can get that number the better. Among the things you can deduct are travel milage for the business (visiting customers, etc.). Here are a couple of ideas if you spouse helps with the business and if you have young children who might help (child labor law age limits generally don't apply to family businesses so long as the work environment does not pose a physical or moral danger to the child). I don't know if they have changed it, but Social Security taxes used to be capped at around $70,000 - the tax was calculated on income up to $70,000 only and anything after that was not taxed that year. A financial planner I once knew had a client who had a small business and his wife worked for him as the office manager/bookkeper. After expenses, the business generated around $100,000 for them as income. He paid himself $60,000 per year and his wife $40,000. His wife wrote a pay check for each of them on the company account each week and then deposited both checks into their joint personal checking account. Both then paid full Social Security taxes (which were 12+% on the $100,000). My friend suggested that the husband take the whole $100,000 and the wife nothing and they would only pay Social Security tax on the first $70,000 of his income saving 12+% on the remaining $30,000. Another trick with children, is find suitable work for them in the business (sweeping the floors, running the paper shredder, simple filing, etc.) and pay them. Their earnings, after an appropriate allowence for spending, can then be used for things like their college education (however, it has to go into an account in their name and the parents will have no further control over it), pay for education in a parochial or other private school, buy their clothing, etc. The point is the income is used to pay expenses for the child that the parent would normally pay but the child's income would be taxed at much lower rate than the parents while the parent's income is also reduced and taxed less. Of course, before doing any of this you should get a good tax preparer or at least get a good tax software like Turbo Tax or TaxCut so that you have solid grounds for anything you deduct (also have good records to back up the information on the tax forms). Finally, don't get too creative with the deductions - let others do that and if the IRS approves it will appear in the manuals for the future and you can safely use it - if they don't approve then the ones who experimented go to jail, not you. Good luck with your business