About

Editorial review: 2026-06-07 · Tax figures verified 2026-05-31

Who runs this site

Jason Mercer started FreelancerTaxEstimator in 2024 after a second consecutive year of being hit with quarterly underpayment penalties as a freelance software developer. The first year, he didn't know self-employment tax existed. The second year, he knew about it but estimated wrong. The third year, he sat down with IRS Publication 505 and Form 1040-ES and built the calculator he wishes he'd had in 2021.

He is not a CPA, Enrolled Agent, or tax attorney. He is a freelancer who learned the math by reading the primary sources, and who runs this site as an educational resource — not as a substitute for professional advice. For specific filing decisions, he refers visitors to a credentialed preparer (the IRS directory link is on every disclaimer).

The site has one editor, one author byline, and one source-of-truth file for every dollar amount and rate it publishes. When a Revenue Procedure drops in late autumn, the constants get bumped and the entire site updates on rebuild.

Email: hello@freelancertaxestimator.com. It comes to a real inbox; bug reports get a reply.

What this site is

FreelancerTaxEstimator.com is a free, ad-supported planning tool for US freelancers and self-employed workers. The core utility is a federal tax estimator that walks the same calculation the IRS uses — self-employment tax, the ½-SE deduction, federal income tax across the current brackets, and the Additional Medicare tax — and gives you a concrete set-aside percentage and per-quarter payment.

The site has a deliberately narrow scope: US federal tax for self-employed individuals. We don't cover business returns (1120/1120-S/1065), C-corp planning, or non-US tax systems. That focus is how the figures and guides stay accurate enough to be useful.

How figures stay accurate

Every dollar amount, rate, and date on this site comes from a single source-of-truth file (tax-constants.ts) that is verified against IRS.gov. The whole site reads from that file — when a figure changes, it updates everywhere at once. The current values were verified on 2026-05-31.

Primary sources:

• IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 — 2026 inflation adjustments, including the post-OBBBA bracket and standard-deduction changes
• IRS — Self-Employment Tax (Social Security and Medicare)
• IRS — Estimated Tax (Form 1040-ES and quarterly due dates)
• IRS — 2026 business standard mileage rate (effective Jan 1, 2026)

Every content page that cites a number links the source. If you find a number on this site without a source link, that's a bug — email me and I will fix it.

Editorial process

• Drafted by one author. All guides on this site are written under one byline (Jason Mercer). There is no anonymous contributor pool and no AI-generated boilerplate.
• Sourced to IRS.gov first. Secondary commentary (Tax Foundation, NATP, AICPA) may be referenced for context but every figure traces back to the IRS publication that issued it.
• Verified annually. When the IRS publishes the next Revenue Procedure (typically late autumn), the constants file gets re-verified and the last verified date on each page is bumped. Mid-year IRS updates (e.g. mileage rate changes) trigger an immediate review.
• Corrections welcome and prompt. Reader-flagged errors are corrected within 72 hours; the page's date modified reflects the fix.

What this site is not

• Not tax advice. The calculator and articles are educational; they don't know your specific situation. For filing decisions, hire a CPA or Enrolled Agent. The IRS preparer directory is a starting point.
• Not a data collector. The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Income, expenses, and filing status never leave the page.
• Not a software listicle farm. The site is monetized by Google AdSense; no affiliate links, no sponsored "best tax software" recommendations.

Methodology limits

The estimator deliberately simplifies a few things:

• It uses the standard deduction for your filing status; it doesn't model itemized deductions.
• It doesn't compute the QBI deduction (§199A) — that one is situation-specific and a rough QBI number is worse than no number.
• State tax is a single user-entered effective rate, not a state-by-state engine.
• It does not handle credits (CTC, EITC, premium tax credit, etc.).

The result is a strong planning number, not a filing number. See the full disclaimer.

Contact

Email hello@freelancertaxestimator.com for bug reports, out-of-date figures, topic requests, or corrections. The contact page has more on what to send and what I can and can't reply to.

— Jason Mercer, Editor, FreelancerTaxEstimator