Self-employed retirement question

[TBH]

I think I've asked about this before, but I couldn't find it when I searched.

More than half my income is now freelance income, and I'm starting to get freaked out by my tax situation. In addition to fed and state taxes, I have to pay a hefty city business tax on my freelance income.

What kind of retirement account should I have?

I currently have:
* A 403b account (like a 401k) from my part-time day job
* A ROTH IRA
* A traditional IRA with some rollover money from an old job

I contribute to my workplace plan (13% with a 5% match). I also have been putting 20% of my freelance income divided between my Roth and my spouse's Roth. But now I want to stop using the Roths and put the money in an account that will reduce my taxes in the short term.

Should I just use my traditional IRA since it's already there and the contributions are tax-deductible (and I can still make 2008 contributions), or is there some other advantage to opening an account specifically for the self-employed? I'm thinking of a SEP-IRA, but I know there are other options.

By the way, I never max out my IRA contributions, so the $5000 contrib limits on the IRAs are not an issue for now.

Thanks!

[jIM_Ohio]

Look up contribution limits on the SEP IRA and other self employed options. If you can use the higher contribution amounts and meet the other rules, it is worth considering.

[zetta]

In a SEP-IRA, you can contribute up to 20% of your freelance income. For tax purposes, every dollar you put into the SEP-IRA reduces your freelance income by one dollar.

Your regular IRA may not be deductible because you have a 401k available at work (not sure if this is dependent on income limis or not).

You might check to see if the city business tax is deductible.

[southerndoc]

In a SEP-IRA, you can contribute up to 20% of your freelance income.

You can contribute up to 20% of net profits, which is your self-employed income minus deducting one-half your self-employment tax.

I think it comes out to around 18% of your income.

SEP-IRA's are great as long as you don't have any employees. Overhead is much less than an Individual 401(k).