Some more adverse effects of California law AB5, not only can I not right off employee expenses, but I have lost the ability to use Individual 401K or SEP IRA plans!

Since the damned California AB5 has taken effect, which basically banned 1099 employment forcing you to work as an employee at companies, I have already lost the ability to write off employee expenses, which I previously was able to do with a schedule C (I know it is the worst for getting audited, but it let me write off expenses at least), but what I hadn’t realize is how much it screws up retirement plans.

Yes I knew about ROTH and regular IRA contributions, which max out at $6000, but as a 1099 employee in addition you can do either a Individual 401(k) with contributions up to $19500, or $26000 if over 50 or a SEP IRA which lets you d0 25% of eligible compensation or 20% of Net earnings or $58,000! And that is in addition to the IRA.

The only other solution is do an S Corp if the companies will even hire me that way and incur the $800 fee, but all the additional tax filing fees and accountant fees to have a corporation that has to pay me, and my accountant says it isn’t worth it unless I am making over 100,000 a year.

And with COVID-19 I now literally work full time on my home machine and equipment, and have to keep all software and hardware up to do, but not being able to file a schedule C means that I can’t write any of that off, and I can’t do additional retirement plans being a traditional IRA or ROTH IRA? Seriously?

Does AB5 actually help anyone?