Help with TurboTax and Self Employment deduction?

[Jugador]

This was quoted from another thread, and I've understood this to be true:

"You must also file a Schedule SE. This is self-employment tax which goes to pay social security and medicaid. It typically works out to be about 15% of your income, but half of that is deductable from your gross income. (The booklet or program will explain all of this in more detail and guide you through it a little better)." -1p0kerboy

Can anyone help in explaining how I can claim this deduction in TurboTax?

I searched, but I don't believe TT has given me any sort of option to claim this 50% deduction on SE taxes.

[Jugador]

nvm, if you click on the Federal Tax Due box, you can see its already accounted for under "Adjustments to Income"

[Reef]

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Here is an example on filing as a professional poker player (assuming from your sessions, you have $100,000 in winnings, $35,000 in losses and spend $25,000 for your travel expenses such as hotel, plane tickets, and cab fees). Don't let the numbers/words scare you; it'll be a piece of cake once you're used to the terminology.

In addition to form 1040, you need to fill out a form called "Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business." Enter $100,000 on line 1 of Part I Income. Enter $35,000 on line 4 of Part I Income. Enter $25,000 on line 24a of Part II Expenses. Your net income is ($100,000 - $35,000 - $25,000) = $40,000 and is entered on line 12 of Form 1040. Since you are self-employed, you have to pay self-employment tax using Form SE.

On Form SE, enter your net income on line 2 and line 3. Multiple line 3 by 92.35% (or .9235). You would get ($40,000 * .9235) = $36,940. Since our income is less than $90,000, we use the equation ($36,940 * .153) = $5,651.82 to find our self-employment tax [if it is more than $90,000, we use the equation ($36,940 * .029) + $11,160]. We get to use 50% of $5,651.82 as a deduction, which is ($5,631.82 * .5) = $2,815.91.

Assuming you are single without children, you get a standard deduction of $5,000 and an exemption of $3,200 for yourself. Now your income is ($40,000 - $2,815.91 - $5,000 - $3,200) = $28,984.09. Your federal tax is $730 + .15 ($28,984.09-7,300) = $3,982.61. Add this to your self-employment tax of $5,651.82 and Uncle Sammy is $9,634.43 richer.

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use this advice at your own risk