Freelance editing

First of all, apologies to those of you who follow me on various platforms, since I am basically putting this everywhere. I just finished writing my novel (yay!), and while I work on editing and eventually querying some agents, I'm hoping to do some freelance editing work. This makes me an independent contractor (right?), and I'm confused about some of the legal aspects. Does anyone who feels like they understand tax-speak want to talk to me about it for a bit? I've found a bunch of relevant legal info for my state and city, but it'd be nice to talk to someone about some of the terms/issues.