Nurse X

Hurdles continued: Becoming a LLC which your accountant will help you with(it's just a little money and a little paperwork which will make you a limited liability co. so you'll be fairly safe from suits). And some other hurdles which I will tell you about only through direct email if your'e interested. Good luck and Congratulations for trying to break out of the box!

Another excellent post NurseMark. Have checked in to doing exactly what you suggest. Here's what I found out from my accountant. First of all, you'll need to charge the hospitals more like $70.00 per hour because not only do you have to pay your own social security, unemployment tax and self employment tax, but also the regular federal and state/local stuff. And this is alot more tax than than you have to pay currently, because the employer you work for pays for your soc. sec. and unemployment tax now(called a "match"). However this is precisely why hospitals will pay an agency 65-75 bucks an hour rather than upping there own Per Diem rates to say 60.00 per hour to attract nurses. They don't have to pay the aforementioned taxes (which companies are required by federal law to "match" --without the self employment tax of course) in addition to not paying all other benefits(401k's health etc.)--which ends up being a huge chunk for these employers.The benefits to the contractor...Huge! You'll end up paying far less tax on far more money if you are diligent with receipts and have a halfway saavy accountant(make sure you find an accountant who has clients that are pc's/ic's). To PeggyOhio--do your own work and you'll see that buying your own benefits(health,dental,disability,life etc. is easily and affordably accomplished through places like guru.com for self employed people or through a couple of days calling insurance "brokerage" services. Currently I work Per diem at 40-50$ per hour and buy my own benefits for the year with 3 shifts of work and feel kind of sad when the fulltimers say "yeah the money is great for you but I couldn't do that because I need the benefits." These are comments from people who are ignorant(not stupid) of the possibilities before them. This is the prison which most nurses are in which you already wrote about in one of your recent posts nurseMark. As far as retirement goes with this business of being selfemployed as a contractor, look into SEP and KEOUGH plans that are available which are incredible 401k-like tax shelters for the self employed. The hurdles: Hiring a lawyer to write up a legal contracts for you in YOUR STATE which could cost anywhere from 500-1500$,