Turning every payment into a share for tax.

The fixed layer: self-employment tax

Self-employment tax is how people who work for themselves pay into Social Security and Medicare. The rate is 15.3%: 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare. It applies to 92.35% of net earnings from self-employment, not the whole amount.

Multiply those together and self-employment tax comes to about 14.13% of net earnings. On $1,000 of net gig income, that is roughly $141. It applies once your net earnings for the year are $400 or more.

There is a ceiling on the Social Security part. For 2026, the IRS puts the wage base at $184,500, and earnings above it are not subject to the 12.4%. Wages from a job count toward that same limit. The 2.9% Medicare part has no ceiling, and higher earners can owe an additional 0.9% Medicare tax on top.

One offset: the IRS lets you deduct half of your self-employment tax when you figure your adjusted gross income. That lowers income tax a little; it does not lower the self-employment tax itself.

The layer that depends on you: income tax

Income tax is where a single rule stops working. Your bracket depends on your total income, filing status, deductions, and credits. Two people with the same gig earnings can land in very different places if one also has a salary and the other does not.

For a rough picture, Shuffo shows a range of 10% to 22% of net earnings for federal income tax. Added to the 14.13% above, the combined share runs from about 24% to about 36% of each dollar of net earnings. That is arithmetic on general rates, not a figure for your return. Some people will owe less, some more, and state income tax, where it applies, comes on top.

Net, not gross

Every percentage here applies to net earnings: what came in minus the business costs that produced it. Mileage, supplies, platform fees, and materials all reduce the base. A share taken from gross deposits will run higher than the math strictly implies, which some people prefer as a cushion and others find too tight to live on.

Either way, the number only holds up if the expenses are recorded as they happen. Rebuilding a year of receipts in March is how deductions get missed.

Per deposit, per week, or per quarter

The same yearly figure can be split three ways. As a share of each deposit, it moves with your income automatically: a slow week sets aside less, a big week sets aside more. As a weekly amount, it is easier to plan around but can fall behind when income jumps. As a quarterly amount, it lines up with the IRS payment dates but asks you to hold a larger sum at once.

None of these is the right answer for everyone. What matters is that the amount set aside keeps pace with the income that created it.

Seeing your own numbers

The set-aside calculator runs this math on the net earnings you expect for the year. It shows the self-employment tax, the 10% to 22% income tax range, the total, and what that works out to each week, each quarter, and as a share of each deposit. It remembers your figure in your browser and needs no account.