Podcast: Bryn’s tax surprise

When it comes to taxes, are you deducting everything you can?

Bryn wasn’t. 

Bryn Mooth is an independent journalist and copywriter at Writes4Food. We’ve been following Bryn’s journey, and recently, we talked about taxes.

In the first meeting with her accountant, Bryn had a big surprise:

She had a percentage in mind for Uncle Sam, but says,  

“It was significantly higher than I expected… I knew that I needed to account for self-employment tax and social security; what I didn’t realize is that, as an independent contractor … I need to pay my income tax quarterly… When I was employed by someone else, it was sort of off my radar…”

Having to pay a much bigger percentage than she expected was a “rude awakening” for Bryn. Fortunately, she had built up a financial cushion before becoming self-employed. This cushion was a huge relief.

Now, Bryn has a different mindset. Going forward:

• She realizes that she can expense a lot more than she thought. All of a sudden, knife sharpening, food for recipe development, and props become expenses.
• Every time a paycheck comes in, half goes into a tax account (just to be safe). 
• Bryn is now very careful about keeping receipts and updating her spreadsheet on “Finance Friday.” This way, when she files next, her estimate will be more manageable and realistic. 

Listen to this 10-minute interview here.

Have you experienced any tax surprises?

For guidance when it comes to taxes, we adore June Walker, tax advisor for the self-employed. Read her guest posts on the Creative Freelancer Blog and check out here books,  Self-employed Tax Solutions + Five Easy Steps, and her free resources. 

Comments

[JimK]

When I was doing freelance work, it was a real pain to do all of the accounting for taxes. Seemed to take away too much time from doing the actual job. WHile this is fine for a larger business to pay a full time person to deal with it, having the same tax structure for solitary employees (not to mention popping the self-employment tax on top of that!) is undue pressure. I'm all for appropriately funding our government, but can't we make it easier for individuals to survive in the business world?