[Russell]

I currently work as a techie at a company through a contracting firm. The contracting firm charges the company I work at $15/hr more than what they pay me. I haven't gotten a raise in 5 yrs and its making me upset.

I've been thinking about forming my own 'contracting firm' to cut out the middle-man, they do nothing more than cut my paycheck and I don't need to pay them $15/hr for that or do I ? From what little I've read here about the self-employment taxes, ss and medicare etc I'm not sure if I'll see that $15/hr ?

Is there a way to calculate this ?

Second, would it be wise to start off as an LLC or sole-prop etc ? In the future, I might recruit a few new people and place them at other firms as consultants/contractors like myself.