How much before you pay taxes

Always take a look at your tax situation, even if you only have minimal earnings for the year, and determine whether or not it would be beneficial to file.

There is a growing number of taxpayers earning money through self-employment as more and more types of work become available online. Millions of people now earn at least a portion of their income from the comfort of their own home. If you perform some kind of work in a self-employment setting, you will need to conform to the tax rules that govern such work. This is because of the self-employment tax.

When you work for yourself, you are responsible for taxes that would otherwise be paid by an employer. These are taxes that go toward Social Security and Medicare. How much do you have to make to file taxes? Understanding tax brackets The amount of tax you owe in a given year is based on your earnings for that year. Social Security recipients For those over 65, Social Security payments are going to come into play when determining whether it will be necessary to file.

Filing as a dependent If you are being claimed as a dependent on another tax return, the requirements for filing your own return will change.

Specific rules for self-employment There is a growing number of taxpayers earning money through self-employment as more and more types of work become available online.

The information in this article is up to date through tax year taxes filed Easily calculate your tax rate to make smart financial decisions Get started. Estimate your self-employment tax and eliminate any surprises Get started. Know what dependents credits and deductions you can claim Get started. Know what tax documents you'll need upfront Get started. Learn what education credits and deductions you qualify for and claim them on your tax return Get started.

The above article is intended to provide generalized financial information designed to educate a broad segment of the public; it does not give personalized tax, investment, legal, or other business and professional advice. Skip To Main Content. When Social Security benefits may be taxable When determining whether you need to file a return and you receive Social Security benefits, you need to consider tax-exempt income because it can cause your benefits to be taxable even if you don't have any other taxable income.

To figure out if your Social Security benefits are taxable: Add one-half of the Social Security income to all other income, including tax-exempt interest. Then compare that amount to the base amount for your filing status. If the total is more than the base amount, some of your benefits may be taxable. Income thresholds for taxpayers 65 and older are higher If you are at least 65 years old, you get an increase in your standard deduction.

You also get an increased standard deduction if: You are blind Or your spouse is also at least 65 Or if your spouse is blind The largest standard deduction would be for a married couple that are both blind and both over 65 years old. When a dependent child or adult may need to file a tax return Taxpayers who are claimed as a dependent on someone's tax return are subject to different IRS filing requirements, regardless of whether they are children or adults.

When you may want to submit a tax return to claim a tax refund With all the above being said, there are years when you might not be required to file a tax return but may want to. The IRS doesn't automatically issue refunds without a tax return, so if you want to claim any tax refund due to you, then you should file one.

All you need to know is yourself Just answer simple questions about your life, and TurboTax Free Edition will take care of the rest. Looking for more information? Get more with these free tax calculators and money-finding tools. You may be taxed on a temporary basis called emergency tax if you are changing job or starting work for the first time.

To avoid paying emergency tax you should register the details of the new job with Revenue's Jobs and Pensions online service in myAccount. You can get more information about tax and starting work or changing job. Tax is charged as a percentage of your income. The percentage that you pay depends on the amount of your income. This is known as the standard rate of tax and the amount that it applies to is known as the standard rate tax band.

The amount that you can earn before you start to pay the higher rate of tax is known as your standard rate cut-off point. See case studies for an example of how to calculate income using tax rates and the standard rate cut-off point. If both are working, this amount is increased by the lower of the following:. Tax credits reduce the amount of tax that you have to pay.

Tax credits are deducted after your tax has been calculated and so a tax credit has the same value to all taxpayers. After your tax is calculated, as a percentage of your income, the tax credit is deducted from this to reduce the amount of tax that you have to pay. You may be entitled to various tax credits depending on your personal circumstances.

You can get more information about the different types of tax credits and reliefs and the tax reliefs available for people with disabilities. If you are entitled to tax credits that are not listed on the tax credit certificate that you get from Revenue, you should contact Revenue to inform them.

Tax allowances reduce the amount of tax that you have to pay. The amount by which a tax allowance will reduce your tax depends on what your highest rate of tax is. This is because the allowance is subtracted from your income before it is taxed. This is known as tax allowance at the marginal rate. When your employer is taking allowances into account in calculating your income tax, the way that this is done is by adjusting your standard rate cut-off point.

This gives your Gross Tax. The value of your tax credits is then subtracted from this to give the amount of tax that you have to pay. The standard rate cut off point may vary according to your personal circumstances. You may be entitled to tax allowances that will raise your standard rate cut off point.

Alternatively, your standard rate cut-off point could be lowered. This could arise, for example, if most of your income is from your employer but you also have income outside this from which tax has not been deducted. This is the amount of the benefit to a standard rate taxpayer, but the tax allowance would have a higher value for a taxpayer paying tax at the higher rate.

This has the opposite effect to the example above. If you are married or in a civil partnership , this may affect your tax bands and tax reliefs. More information can be found on our document Taxation of married people and civil partners. You can find Revenue contact details for your region here. If you are on low pay you may not be liable to pay any tax because your tax credits and reliefs are more than or equal to the amount of tax you are due to pay.

There is no income tax exemption for low income earners under