Hi - I am currently being paid as a contractor, not an employee. This means I'm responsible for paying all of FICA, right? Is there a "tax-paying for dummy contractors" web resource or something? Hiring an accountant is right out, I'm barely covering expenses right now.

I think I'll be an employee eventually, but don't know the timetable.

Smonster, don;t say the IRS never gave you anything: [link]

Thanks, flea!! And OY. I guess I need to pay my first round of estimated tax in June.

smonster, your medical insurance can be a tax write off as well. Don't know if you're paying for that out of pocket, but when you're a contractor, many, many things are business expenses that can decrease your "income" as far as paying taxes go.

Start logging any mileage you drive for work, including any commute to and from work. As a contractor you can claim all of those miles.

At this point, smonster, just track your spending, or throw all your receipts in a box, which I fear is my method. You can get away with fairly token tax payments this year, since they don't have a history, and figure it out at the end of the year. Or you can take the advice of less sloppy people.

Tools, work clothes. Expense expense expense!

Expensify. If you do most of your purchases via debit, it can be an easy way to track and categorize your spending. For all reasons, but also for business.

Smonster, your may want to get another account for this. Mic you get a checking account with a debit card, you can track al of your work expenses. keep the receipts, but your statements are an itemized list.

This must be the place where I can toot my own horn! My company develops software and yet I have zero programming background. My education is accounting and my role in the business has been management and customer service. I am often in the middle man role of translating between the tech and non-tech people because I understand them both, somewhat.

Anyway, my priorities and Development priorities are often not aligned and I try and figure out work arounds. So this morning I tackled a problem that will eventually be solved in code, but I get pressure from end users to solve.

And with the help of Google and an understanding of our SQL tables I wrote a super complicated (for me) query that pulls info from a bunch of tables and gives me a report we really need. So, in your face smarty pants programmers! Keep being slow and I'll just do it myself.

Also, really expect to impress the co-workers so extra cool.

Thank you for listening to my bragging. Had to get it out somewhere!