Taxes
Your personal income taxes are due every April 15th to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the US Government. In most cases, your State income taxes are due on the same day. You must file a return or an extension on or before that date every year. The kind of return to file and whether or not to file an extension is dependent on the kind of a job you have as well as other factors. You want to file in the way that gives you the smallest amount of tax owed. This is yet another reason that it can be a very good idea to have an Accountant assist you with the process of filing your taxes.
There are three general classifications of tax filers: 1) Employees of companies, 2) Independent Contractors, and 3) Companies, which typically file as Corporations. Each is treated differently by the IRS and the specific classification under which you file determines your tax due.
If you work as an employee, your taxes are typically deducted during the year by your employer on each paycheck as described in Paychecks. This is classification W2. Since employers always err on the side of caution, and make certain they take all that they should from you on behalf of the government, very often in the real world this means that you will be do a tax refund at the time you file your taxes.
If you work as an Independent Contractor, you will have a 1099 status with the IRS and with your employer instead of the usual W2 associated with employees. In this case, the employer will not deduct any of the taxes you may owe from that income. The responsibility of filing and paying the proper amount is all up to you. No taxes will have been collected there will almost always be taxes due when you file your tax return. In this kind of scenario, typically the IRS likes you to send them some money in advance every quarter of the year.
Corporations are treated very differently by the IRS than individuals. There are almost always tax advantages to incorporating. So even if you are only an individual working as 1099 status, it is usually a good idea to create yourself as a company and then to do your work and collect all money as a corporation. Your corporation would issue stock that you would own. As the only stockholder, all money in the corporation can be claimed by you, so it is very much the same as being paid directly.
Again, the details of all of the advantages of having a corporation and the details of how the money gets paid to you properly from that corporation would be known by your Accountant.
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Taxes
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