Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

My name is Joshua Sheets, I'm your host. Today is Friday, May 26, 2023, and on this Friday, as we do on any other Friday, in which I can arrange the appropriate technology, we have a live Q&A show.

You call in, talk about anything that you want, ask any questions, raise any topics, and we have a conversation.

If you'd like to join me on one of these Friday Q&A shows, you can do that at becoming a patron of the show. Go to patreon.com, slash radicalpersonalfinance, patreon.com, slash radicalpersonalfinance, and sign up to sports show there, and you will gain access to these Friday Q&A shows.

We begin with a net in North Carolina, a net. Welcome to the show. How can I serve you today?

Thank you, Joshua, for taking full answer to these calls. I really appreciate it. I like this setup, too, anyway. I am calling about some tax strategies. I'm 68, and I teach, and I'm trying to figure out how to minimize my taxes or how to create a business with it.

I have an LLC, because I was a contract instructor, but they've made those W2 employees. I want to keep working, but I'm paying a lot of taxes, and they say, we'll have more taken out. I'm doing that, but it's almost to the point where I'm going to just be working for free.

What is your current income from your W2 job?

Well, I am retired, so I have a pension, and I'm doing Social Security. My income is about, with the part-time job, I teach one class online, that's all I do. So it's about 97,000.

So your income from your W2 job is 97,000, is that correct?

No, my W2 from my job is about 14,000, and then I have a pension and Social Security altogether.

Okay, so 14,000 from the job. How much is your pension income?

55,000.

And how much is your Social Security?

32,000.

Okay, and in addition to that, do you have other sources of income from the business? Is the business profitable for you?

I don't have a business, that's what I'm trying to do.

I understand.

Okay, so you previously had an LLC, and you were previously...

No, I still have the LLC, but I'm not able to use it because of the tax law in 2017, so it cut out a lot of those things that you could deduct.

So I don't have those business-related expenses anymore, and so basically, because I'm a W2 employee, no longer independent contractor.

Understood, okay.

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