Schedule Se: Fill & Download for Free

It took me eleven years, chronologically, to get my undergraduate degree. But there were terms where I did not attend at all, and terms where I was enrolled half time outnumbered terms where I was enrolled full time. During most of this time I was also holding down one, two, even three part time jobs, along with a couple of small businesses. (I've filed more 1040s with a schedule SE attached than without.)One of the most responsible people I've ever known was my roommate for a semester. He had gone long on his degree program because his duties in the Air Force had prevented him from scheduling a couple of degree requirements on time. How terribly irresponsible of him to put his military obligations ahead of completing his degree in precisely four years. (By the way, the program he was in, aeronautical engineering, has so many interlocking degree requirements that less than 25 percent of students in it at my old school completed the program in four years, not because they have to repeat classes, but just because scheduling into all the required classes with limited seats is logistically very difficult.)

I assume that:You are a US citizen or resident alien.You are performing this service in the US.You are not considered to be an employee of the entity for which you are performing this service.With those assumptions: You file Schedule C with your tax return, claiming the gross income from the freelance project and taking any deductions related to the generation of that income - such as supplies that you purchased specifically for that project. The instructions for Schedule C can be found at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040sc.pdf.If your net income from the project is $400 or more, you must also file Schedule SE and pay an additional tax on the net income. The instructions for Schedule SE can be found at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040sc.pdf.I also recommend that you take a look at IRS Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p334.pdf. IRS Publication 535, Business Expenses (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p535.pdf) and IRS Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping Records (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p583.pdf), may also be useful to you.If this sounds like overkill for a small freelance project - well, maybe it is, but I expect that as you progress in your career more of these little projects will be coming your way, and it's a good idea to learn as much as you can now so that you can plan ahead for what may come your way in the future.

If you have several different unrelated businesses, each of which you pursue as a sole proprietorship independently of the others, you should prepare a separate Schedule C (or C-EZ) for each such independent venture, with the income and expenses of each reported on its associated schedule.However, you should only prepare one Schedule SE, no matter how many separate sources of self-employment income you have.