If you only make $40k a year you aren't going to be paying very much in taxes at all. You also want be paying very much for healthcare as it will be subsidized by the ACA.
>If you only make $40k a year you aren't going to be paying very much in taxes at all. You also want be paying very much for healthcare as it will be subsidized by the ACA.
ACA subsidies (at least in NY) are in the form of tax credits. If you don't have any (or not enough to pay taxes on) income, those tax credits are useless.
If you have no (or very low) income, the state will instead put you on Medicaid. Which has mostly terrible healthcare providers.
As such, if you go the "quit my job and go my own way" route, expect to pay USD$600-1000/month (for an individual, families will be much, much more) for decent health insurance or deal with the huge pile of crap that is Medicaid.
If you're young, single and healthy, perhaps that won't matter to you. If you're not, that could be a big problem.
If you're self-employed your FICA rate basically doubles. Depending on your state, that means your tax burden at $40K could be ~$9-12K. Even with a subsidy you're looking at another $2-3K for health insurance. That makes your take-home less than $30K, 25% less than what GP proposed was sufficient income for basic comfort.
ACA subsidies (at least in NY) are in the form of tax credits. If you don't have any (or not enough to pay taxes on) income, those tax credits are useless.
If you have no (or very low) income, the state will instead put you on Medicaid. Which has mostly terrible healthcare providers.
As such, if you go the "quit my job and go my own way" route, expect to pay USD$600-1000/month (for an individual, families will be much, much more) for decent health insurance or deal with the huge pile of crap that is Medicaid.
If you're young, single and healthy, perhaps that won't matter to you. If you're not, that could be a big problem.