Contributing to SEP-IRA as a 1099 Employee

[Marie J Miller]

I am a new 1099 employee working part-time through a contracting company. They pay me directly as an individual. In order to minimize my taxable income, I would like to contribute to a SEP-IRA. Does anyone have experience doing this? Is this something I can do directly or do the contributions need to be made by the company I am doing contracting work through? I see there is also a requirement you need to have worked 3 of the last 5 years. Is this something that can be worked around? Previous to this, I was a W-2 employee for 10 years and have recently switched to 1099 income.