<prompt> Human: Alright, so Ive run into a big unexpected tax burden for some work Ive done. Heres the rundown.So, last year I did some contract IT work. A friend of mine had someone leave his IT department and needed a replacement. They needed someone to fill the gap, but werent ready to hire a full time employee yet. His company offered to hire me on as a contractor, with the assurance that I would almost certainly be hired full time after a month or two. I was unemployed, and the pay was good, so I accepted the offer. I worked for about three months as a contractor, and was then hired on as a full time employee.They gave me a 1099 for my contract work, and a W2 for the employee work. Everything seemed fine and dandy, until I got what my tax burden to the IRS is.3,500 for about 6 months of work. For the first 3 months, I was contracted and had no taxes withheld, for the rest of the time, I was a normal employee and had taxes withheld, and I didnt claim any exemptions.This just seems way too high to me. After digging into it a bit, it seems the biggest chuck is a 1,400 self employment tax being levied against me. After talking to another coworker, my boss, and a guy in HR, who have all done self-employed contract work, they say theyve never had to pay a self-employment tax like this.So, WTFs up? Is something not being filed right? Are my coworkers just misremembering? If there is any way to get out of this? I can afford to pay it, but 1400 is a rather large sum of money to pay for 3 months of work that I was essentially doing to help out a friend...Edit: Sounds like Im just out 1,400. Yay...Assistant: Self employment tax is a hair over 15, and while half of that is deductible for figuring out your normal tax burden, theres really not any way around that unless you have some offsetting expenses you can deduct against that income. If you earned 9500 in those three months, then thats the base tax youll have to pay even before we get to income tax. I have no idea what situation your coworkers were in, but maybe they had substantial offsetting business expenses to deduct? I can afford to pay it, but 1400 is a rather large sum of money to pay for 3 months of work that I was essentially doing to help out a friend...Im confused as to why you see it this way? That tax number indicates you made more than 9k, which means you made 6.5k after taxes for helping out a friend, Maybe thats not a fair representation of your value for 3 months work it does sound low to be in IT, but youve definitely come out ahead financially for your troubles, especially since you said you were unemployed AND its now turned into a full-time job.Self employment is tricky because so much of your actual salary when full time is hidden from you half of the medicareSocial security taxes, for instance, and it definitely sucks to be caught unawares by it. But, frankly, you sound like you can roll with it fine so youre in much better shape than many of the self-employed that end up here with tax liabilities they werent expecting and cant afford to pay.Human: I dont know. First time being self-employed, and that just seems kind of excessive.Although, reading into the IRS definition for being self-employed, I was almost certainly an employee during this time, and not self-employed. Would it be worth the hassle to re-file as an employee, or is the difference likely to be negligible?  <response>: You cannot just decide to refile as an employee. You would have to report your company for misclasifying you, and then the IRS would go after them for half of the payroll taxes...but youll still owe the other half and federal taxes.Theres almost no way to get out of paying it. 