Self-Employed and Injured: Four Steps to Calculate Your Lost Income

Whether you were injured in a car accident, a slip and fall, or any other incident where another person’s negligence caused you to get hurt, the goal of a personal injury case is to hold the faulty parties responsible and get compensated for the expenses connected to your injuries. One of the major losses you’ve faced is likely lost income or lost wages. This refers to the money that you would have earned if you had not been injured, but were unable to because you were in the hospital or lost your ability to do your job. 

For people with salaries or even steady hourly jobs, calculating lost income is fairly straightforward. However, if you are self-employed, it can be a little more difficult to accurately calculate your lost income. Read on to find the steps that independent contractors, freelancers, sole proprietors, and other self-employed people can use to determine how much income they lost as a result of their injury.

1. Look at your past 1099-MISC forms.

Find as many of your miscellaneous income forms from the last several years of taxes as possible. This will provide a history of your earnings.

2. Calculate your average incomes.

Perhaps your work is seasonal. Perhaps you make large amounts of money one month and next to nothing the next. Find averages to get a clearer view of how much you make.

3. If your business is too new to establish a pattern of income, look at your contracts for future work.

You will likely need to prove the amount of money you could reasonably have expected to make. It will be more difficult to do so if your business is new and you have not yet filed taxes to establish a pattern of income. However, you can use your contracts for future work or existing product orders as evidence of what you would have earned instead. 

4. Connect with an experienced personal injury attorney.

When you have been injured as a result of someone else’s negligence, you need to partner with a personal injury attorney. At The Bagneris Firm, we help our clients get maximum compensation, including compensation for lost wages. We can help you calculate how much income you’ve lost and gather the evidence you need to prove this is accurate. Our team would love to discuss your case with you. We encourage you to contact us today to get started.

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Bagneris Law Firm

The Bagneris Firm is an experienced civil litigation firm with decades of combined experience serving both plaintiffs and defendants in a wide-range of different cases including personal injury and business disputes. Our firm is based out of New Orleans, and we serve clients throughout Louisiana. Attorneys Emile and Suzette Bagneris have a long and impressive careers with experience training insurance adjusters and risk managers, representing large corporations and insurance companies, and helping individuals and businesses with all aspects of their legal cases. The fact that we have represented clients on all sides of legal issues allows us to better predict what will happen and prepare an effective strategy to help our clients.

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