Do you pay taxes on the money you earn from your side hustle? If so, then he's a hack you'll want to know: Contributing to a SEP IRA can help lower your taxes as well as allow you to stash away more money for retirement! For years I’ve enjoyed making money on the side from blogging. But in the eyes of the government, that money is “business income”, and therefore taxable. So while it was fun to earn several thousand dollars per year, it wasn’t so great having to pay roughly a quarter of that money back into taxes every year. Just like all the steps I’ve taken to reduce my personal taxes down as much as possible, I knew there had to be a way to do the same with my business income. That’s when I discovered the SEP IRA. By … [Read more...] about How We’ve Saved $1,000’s in Taxes By Contributing to Our SEP IRA
Taxes
Extra Income Taxes – How I Messed Mine Up and What You Can Do to Get It Right
Even financial bloggers don’t always get everything right. This year I found out there is a dark side to earning a decent amount of passive income. While making money outside your job is absolutely great, you have to remember that at some point you have to report it all to the IRS. And that means paying a whole lot of extra income taxes! While the concept of having to paying taxes on your earnings is no secret to anyone, the way you have to go about it is a little bit more complicated than simply waiting until February and then paying in a thousand bucks one time. In fact because of the mistakes I made, I’ll likely have to pay a penalty for my negligence. If you’re someone who freelances or makes a decent amount of extra income … [Read more...] about Extra Income Taxes – How I Messed Mine Up and What You Can Do to Get It Right
Did I Just Find Another Great Retirement Saving Strategy? Understanding the SEP IRA Rules
I think I may have found another good one. A few weeks ago when I laid out my ultimate plan for becoming financially independent, I thought I had really done a pretty good job of optimizing every single angle of my retirement savings options. My 401k. My IRA. Is there anything else I’m possibly missing where I could find even MORE tax-deferred savings? Apparently there is! And as it turns out it has a lot to do with this blog. So all of my blogging friends or people earning any kind of side income may want to listen up … … [Read more...] about Did I Just Find Another Great Retirement Saving Strategy? Understanding the SEP IRA Rules
The Now or Later Tax Refund
Yea! I got my income taxes done. Any day now I should be expecting both my Federal and State return to direct deposit into my bank account. I’m not getting back as much this year as I had hoped, but it will still be quite a handsome amount. Just like back-to-school signs and Christmas decorations, you can almost pin-point the time from December on when a swarm of tax-filing hysteria starts to show up in our lives. But among the tax software and lists of documents we’re told to dig out of our file cabinets, financial advisors also like to argue one age-old debate: • Should you wait to get your big tax refund check or take it throughout the year? … [Read more...] about The Now or Later Tax Refund