If you have unpaid taxes that you haven't yet been making payments toward, it might make you fearful that the IRS will come a-knocking one day to collect on what you owe. Tax debt can quickly snowball from interest, penalties, late fees, and the amount of the taxes due. However, a lot of the scaremongering surrounding the IRS is largely sensationalized in media and daily conversation. Agents won't come bursting through your door just because you have tax debt. Instead, they must follow due process in accordance with the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (RRA). This means that you will always receive written notice concerning your balance due as well as collectio
Self-employed individuals, unlike employees, don’t have someone withholding Social Security or Medicare (FICA) taxes along with pre-payments toward their federal (and state, where applicable) income tax from their wages during the year. They are not being paid a wage; instead, a self-employed individual must keep a set of books showing income and expenses associated with their self-employed business that will allow them to determine their taxable profits (or losses). While an employer and an employee each pay half of the FICA taxes due on an employee’s wages, a self-employed person pays 100% of these taxes, termed the self-employment tax or SE tax for short, on his or her self-employment pro
