[ZanderEarth32]

I subscribe to Nathan's emails (some of the only emails I read regularly, they're that good and useful btw)and was really happy to read he had such a successful year. But I was also saddened to see that he admitted to not having as much money in his bank accounts as he had hoped or planned. He mentions that taxes were huge, but being employed rather than self-employed myself, is he paying that much more in taxes than he would be if was just a salaried employee at a regular company?

[nugget]

He admits to lifestyle creep as his income increased. It's not what you make, it's what you spend. That's the best personal finance advice I ever received, but very unintuitive for most people unfortunately.

[nathanbarry]

Yep, it's pretty much just spending more on lifestyle. I grew up relatively poor (for my area) so I always thought I'd live on just a little bit of money, even if I had far more. That didn't really happen like I thought.

But I have zero debt, no financial obligations, and $50k in the bank, so I'm doing fine. Just not what I would have expected after a year like 2013.

[nbouscal]

One of the best ways to prevent your spending from getting away from you is to set up automatic saving. Most banks and credit unions will let you set up automatic monthly transactions to put some amount into a savings account without you having to think about it. Once it's set up, the "out of sight out of mind" principle kicks in for your benefit.

It's also a good idea to do the same thing for investment. Especially with the amount of taxes you're paying, being sure to take advantage of government tax-advantaged retirement plans is important. You make too much now to do a Roth IRA, but you can still do a traditional IRA. I'd recommend using Vanguard, investing in index funds, and again setting up automatic investments so that you don't have to think about it.

(This is the first time I've read your blog and I know nothing about you, so maybe I'm saying things you already know, but I thought it couldn't hurt to post anyway. As you mention, you're in great shape either way.)

[aaronblohowiak]

> It's not what you make, it's what you spend.

I've heard this as "It's not what you make, it's what you save" which puts the emphasis on building wealth.

[jpatokal]

Tax-wise, the US is among the worst places to be self-employed. Per this little calculation of mine, an IT entrepreneur earning $100k would keep >99% in Singapore, but <57% in SF. (Massive caveats apply and are enumerated in detail in the article.)

http://gyrovague.com/2013/10/30/half-the-donut-why-an-entrep...

[gamblor956]

I was going to rebut the linked article, but it has so many basic factual errors that it's easier to say that the article is completely useless. Suffice to say, when you cherry pick the financial considerations included in your "model", it's easy to reach whatever conclusion you want.

[jpatokal]

As the author of said article, I'd be keen to hear about these "factual errors". Yes, the calculation makes a lot of assumptions, many of them generous, but these are clearly laid out upfront. And while I agree that you would probably not want to use the exact model laid out ($2k salary plus company profit as dividends) in each country covered, you've got to establish some sort of baseline to be able to sensibly compare them!

I have considered doing a v2 where the starting point would be "$100k sitting in a company account" and the goal would "as much cash as possible in my personal account", but I'm not sure this would be particularly useful or any more realistic. For example, in Singapore the optimal strategy would be to draw zero salary and take out everything as tax-free dividends, but most entrepreneurs can't afford to wait a year to get any money at all.

[gamblor956]

For starters, at least half of your US tax rates are either wrong or wrongly applied. Beyond that, you'd have to pay me to spend the time to detail all of the inaccuracies. My hourly rate starts at $300.

[jpatokal]

How about one example before I hire you? The US tax rate computation is based on the MIT Living Wage calculator for personal taxes, and ZenPayroll for payroll taxes.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/places/0607567000 https://zenpayroll.com/blog/the-true-cost-to-hire-an-employe...

[eru]

I don't know about this calculation, but I can tell you that as a salaried employee in Singapore at the local equivalent 100k USD a year, you'd pay around 5% in taxes without any deductions necessary. (That's around my situation.)

[EdwardDiego]

> Tax-wise, the US is among the worst places to be self-employed.

Singapore's a bit of an outlier - the government owns one of the busiest ports in the world, thus requires less income from tax compared to others.

If you compare the US to other Western democracies, how does it fare?

[Ives]

You'll definitely pay much less in taxes than you would in Belgium.

[dkokelley]

> "...is he paying that much more in taxes than he would be if was just a salaried employee at a regular company?"

Not quite. Some taxes are paid by the employer, and some taxes are withdrawn directly from your paycheck. When you are self-employed, you see exactly how Uncle Sam gets both sides of the action.

[wmeredith]

Yeah, this was quite the shocker for me once I started making serious side money. Personal income taxes are about 50% in the US. (Which, by the way, would be totally fine with me if it funded infrastructure and social safety nets. Unfortunately, the vast majority of that goes to wars against nebulous foes, i.e. drugs, terrorism, etc...)

[dragonwriter]

> Personal income taxes are about 50% in the US.

No, they aren't. There are a handful of states where the top marginal rate (combining federal and state rates) is at or above 50%, but that's not the overall rate even for those top earners, and its certainly not the average overall rate in the country.

[001sky]

Its not an unrealistic marginal rate for NYC or perhaps even parts of California.[1] This is a case where 'average' is often misleading. When you take a salary...its a take it/leave it package (X net of tax). When you are self-employed, you are always deciding: do I do another X for another Y in return. At that stage, its all about marginal ROI from your time.

[1] Because of the real estate, many of these types of places are not really 'livable', and you see entry level jobs that offer salaries already at or neat the top tax brackets (despite the fact that these people have few/no assets or real 'net worth').

[dragonwriter]

> Its not an unrealistic marginal rate for NYC or perhaps even parts of California.

The claim was that personal income tax "in the US" was about 50%.

That's very different than saying the truth which is that "maximum marginal income (including payroll) tax rates in the highest-tax US states are around 50%".

> you see entry level jobs that offer salaries already at or neat the top tax brackets

The top US federal marginal rate starts at $400,001 for a single filer; $450,001 for married filing jointly/qualified widow(er), $225,001 for married filing separately, and $425,001 for head of household.

I've never seen anything fairly described as entry-level offering a salary at or near that, even in expensive places like SF.

[001sky]

Fair enough, but by 'the top tax brackets' I meant those sufficient to trigger combined taxation approching 50%,

eg, $90K in California? back of the envelope

28% $87,850 to $183,250 Federal Rate

15.30%* Social Security, self employed

8.8% State-Level taxes

=======

~ 52% Aggregate tax rate (excluding 9% sales tax average).

This is not an average rate, nor does it include the provision of the healthcare mandate. In any event, this is meant to be illustrative only, and the marginal and average dynamics play out differently at higher rates (for a variety of reasons, including tax-sheltering and regressive taxes on payroll and sale/consumption taxes).

[davidw]

Nathan lives in Idaho, IIRC.

[001sky]

There are several states without income taxes and/or sales taxes as well (NV, OR, TX, FL). Depending upon your income stream/sources and lifestyle this is hugely important. Once you retire...for example...you may spend more than you earn...or you may buy a car (that last 10 years). For other people, its real-estate (maintenance) taxes that are a function of asset-bases (often inflated, and not income). {etc}

[nbouscal]

You are correct, and I'm just nitpicking, but I do think it's worth pointing out that in NYC the effective tax rate can get close to 50% even for relatively entry-level salaries (low six-figures). Federal, State, and Local income taxes, plus FICA taxes... it adds up. For top earners, effective rate can definitely reach 50%. Again, I'm just being pedantic; you're absolutely right that in most of the country the effective rates are nowhere near that high. Sadly, most people just don't understand how marginal rates work.

[stirno]

If you add up all the entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) you'll notice they account for more than 60% of the federal budget. Not sure this leaves a 'vast majority' to fund wars.

[JDShu]

Those are not (supposed to be) paid through our income taxes, that's why we get taxed medicare and social security separately. The "vast majority" description does apply if you look at non-discretionary spending.

Edit: I suppose it could be argued that money that goes to the military doesn't directly mean funding wars. We have bases all over the world after all.

[EdwardDiego]

> Personal income taxes are about 50% in the US.

I'm not American, but every time I look at taxation levels, I come out with a number significantly smaller than that. I presume that America uses progressive taxation, so at what income level does personal income + payroll tax equate to 50% of gross?

[derekp7]

According to the 1040 tax tables, 100,000 gets taxed at 21,454, so that is 21.4%. Add on 15% FICA (if self employed), 5% state tax, and you are up to 41.4%. Now if you own a house that the county assessor says is worth $200K, you are talking about 8K a year in property tax (this will vary by area, but is true for where I'm at in the midwest). That leaves $55,546 out of the 100,000 to spend. Ok, now try to spend it -- you will pay 8% in sales taxes, for another $4443.68. So all you have left is a shade over 51k, out of that initial 100K that you earned. So not quite 50% taxation, but close enough (actually, some sales taxes are higher, such as gasoline, etc).

[EdwardDiego]

That FICA number is high, at least according to Wikipedia.

> Under the SE Tax Act, self-employed people are responsible for the entire percentage of 15.3% (= 12.4% [Soc. Sec.] + 2.9% [Medicare]); however, the 15.3% multiplier is applied to 92.35% of the business's net earnings from self-employment, rather than 100% of the gross earnings; the difference, 7.65%, is half of the 15.3%, and makes the calculation fair in comparison to that of regular (non-self-employed) employees.

The rest of your figures aren't really what I'd consider personal income taxation, although they're definitely interesting. Also interesting is that married people in the US of A experience a tax advantage when filing jointly - not so our tax code, it's very theoretically pure.

[derekp7]

I also didn't include the fact that state income tax, and property tax are deductible from federal income. Also mortgage interest is deductible. So, back of the envelope comes down to closer to 42% taxation.

> The rest of your figures aren't really what I'd consider personal income taxation, although they're definitely interesting

I'd say that sales tax is personal, but property tax maybe not, since that isn't directly related to income. However, it still means that for every dollar that someone pays you to do work, you only get to spend 58 cents.

[nbouscal]

> Also interesting is that married people in the US of A experience a tax advantage when filing jointly

It's not quite that simple. Filing jointly confers a tax advantage when the couple makes relatively little, but becomes neutral as they earn more, and is actually a tax disadvantage when the couple makes a significant amount.

[stirno]

You'd need to combine a very very high income level (well above $450k/yr with lots of money getting taxed in the highest federal nominal bracket), live in a state with high income tax and have a bad accountant.

In short, if anyone is paying that much in taxes they are very much doing it wrong... and I kind of doubt people are.

[skittles]

The self employed pay 15.3% of gross income to FICA and Medicare taxes. This amount cannot be avoided (no tax breaks). Employees pay roughly half this percentage. It's also very easy for the newly self employed to see the money rolling in and spend it. One has to be disciplined enough to set aside enough for taxes in a separate account.

[dragonwriter]

> The self employed pay 15.3% of gross income to FICA and Medicare taxes. This amount cannot be avoided (no tax breaks). Employees pay roughly half this percentage.

Everyone, effectively pays 15.3% of gross SS-covered wages up to $113,700 and 2.9% on income above that.

If you aren't self-employed, exactly (not "roughly") half of that (the so-called "employer's share") is not directly visible, while half of it is reflected in payroll deductions.

[hobs]

Yeah, most people dont know about ER taxes because they dont have to pay them until they are self employed.

[stirno]

This isn't necessarily true. Its fairly common to have an S-Corp (or LLC filing as S-Corp) dodge a significant chunk of the self-employment tax by paying a lower salary and then shareholder distributions for the rest.

Balance is important here as the IRS watches these situations closely, but any decent accountant should help someone down this path.

[stevenwei]

On top of this, if you are making any significant amount of money as a self-employed individual you should probably look into setting up a solo-401k or a SEP-IRA, which will help reduce your taxable income (by up to $51,000 for 2013).

[skittles]

After looking into this, it looks like the IRS will ding you if you pay yourself less than what it would take to hire someone to do the same job.

[stirno]

The IRS will, effectively, value your job in the event of an audit and determine whether you paid yourself reasonably compared to your market for your skills, experience, etc.

I had prepared an example that showed you could actually pay less in FICA, while still being reasonable in the eyes of the IRS. Maybe not ideal to post it here though.

[a8da6b0c91d]

How do those CEOs with $1 salaries get the all clear? Their compensation is all capital gains, yeah?

[Romoku]

Long term capital gains is less than the alternative minimum tax. Executive compensation probably consists of a mixture between stock options and company paid expenses (airfare, company car, vacations, travel, nice office equipment, etc).

[lmm]

Maybe the IRS determines that's the market rate for their skills :P

[derekp7]

If the majority of CEOs do this, then that is the typical compensation of CEOs. So they get away with it because they all do it.

[TheEzEzz]

I believe this only applies to S-corps, in order to prevent abuse of the pass-through taxation S-corps enjoy. IANAA though.

[petercooper]

I always found the US self employment tax curious and wondered if it dissuaded people from being self employed if they had the choice (even setting aside the health insurance situation).

Here in the UK, the self employed pay less (9% vs 12%) in the equivalent tax (called National Insurance here) than the employed, with the tradeoff being that they can't claim various state unemployment benefits (for obvious reasons).

[nathanbarry]

From what I've heard people fear the complexity, not the increased rates. Also it's hard to get health insurance or a mortgage when self-employed.

[griffordson]

It used to be hard to get insurance. That changes in a couple days. It is rude to claim the ACA does anything to help anyone, let alone business owners, but I'm certainly happy that I'll be getting oppressed by Obamacare in the new year.

[nathanbarry]

I had a super easy time getting insurance when I moved to self-employed. But that is something a lot of people are scared of. That is a nice thing about the ACA, you don't have to worry about that.

But I am annoyed my insurance costs are going up by quite a bit, but in the grand scheme of things I still pay very little.

[stirno]

If you setup your company correctly, this is often the case for self-employed people in the US as well.

[petercooper]

Yeah, I was speaking entirely from a self employed perspective, although the semantics get tricky with incorporation. In the UK, though, you can do a similar thing where you incorporate, pay yourself under the level where you have to pay National Insurance (there's a free allowance), and then pay the remainder using dividends (which attract no NI), so you can theoretically reduce your exposure to these types of taxes to nil.

[zefhous]

To be more precise, my understanding is that it's not gross income, but net profit. So, expenses are not taxed.

Also, 92.35% of that profit is taxable, and as dragon writer said you stop paying FICA at $113,700 and then you play only 2.9% for Medicare.

Here are examples of self-employment tax at different levels of income:

    $100,000 - $14,129.55 in taxes, an effective rate of 14.13%
    $200,000 - $19,455.10 in taxes, an effective rate of 9.73%
    $300,000 - $22,133.25 in taxes, an effective rate of 7.38%