Re: Salary Survey from STC

[Yvonne DeGraw <yvonne -at- SILCOM -dot- COM>]

Michael Burke <miburke -at- WSICORP -dot- COM> asked:
>     If I were a 1099 contractor working at $48 per hour, about how much
>     should I put away in anticipation of taxes? Is there a rough
>     "standard" that most contractors use?

I gave a short talk on "No-Painful-Surprises Accounting for Independent
Contractors" at the Anaheim conference. My handouts and a spreadsheet I use
to put away money for taxes etc. are at
http://www.silcom.com/~yvonne/consult/index.html

The percentages I use are as follows, but everyone has a different tax and
financial situation. My numbers lean toward giving myself a "rebate" from
the savings at the end of the year. I suggest determining your own
percentages based on prior years taxes.

Fed Tax     18%
Soc Sec     15.3%
State Tax    5%
Retirement  13%
Time Off     8%
Expenses    10%

Hope this helps some.

BTW, some of you are arguing because you are confusing posts about two
separate surveys: the main STC survey, which is employment salaries and the
STC CIC survey, which is contract rates. Also, notice that many people call
their W-2 income through agencies their "contract rate". Those rates are
typically much closer to employment rates than true contracting rates.
Yvonne DeGraw, Technical Services     o Technical Writing
yvonne -at- silcom -dot- com                     o Online Help
http://www.silcom.com/~yvonne         o Web Documentation
Tel: 805/683-5784                     o Database Publishing
Santa Barbara STC: http://stc.org/region8/snb