1099 Question

1099 Question

Do you all the companies automatically send a 1099? Or will I need to request it from some of them?

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More About Mystery Shopping Taxes

Theoretically, if a company paid you $600 or more during the calendar year in fees, they are required to send you a 1099-MISC. The $600 should include fees and bonuses paid to you but NOT REIMBURSEMENTS or other expenses such as the Paypal fees they pay Paypal to transmit funds to you, the shipping costs they pay to send you materials or that they pay directly or indirectly through reimbursing you.

This being said, a company will not prepare or send you a 1099-MISC for amounts under $600. Don't bother asking for one.

You are responsible for paying taxes on EVERY dollar earned, so whether you get a 1099 or not, you may have liability for income and social security taxes. Hopefully you have kept full records of all income and business expenses such that your tax liability, which is calculated on the net profit of your business, can be clearly demonstrated even in the absence of 1099s or the presence of inaccurate 1099s.

Getting 1099s corrected is an exercise in futility unless they are orders of magnitude off (like you earned $700 and the 1099 is for $70,000). You do not submit them as an attachment to your tax return and even under the best of circumstances they are unlikely to match your own spectacular record keeping, so do your return based on your records.

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Liked by: panama18, ceasesmith, BirdyC, teacherguy, Rousseau, Steadysam

Thank you so very much! I’m on SSDI & only started shopping again about six months ago. So this is my first time having to file in a very long time.

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I actively encourage everyone to file a return, even if they fall below the income levels required to file. The reasoning is simple--tie up your SSN as having filed so that someone else cannot use your number to file and claim refunds to which you are not entitled. There are websites that allow low income folks to prepare and e-file a return at no cost and in many public libraries there are IRS registered tax preparers able to help you prepare and file a return as a volunteer activity. Check out the IRS.gov website for more information.

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Liked by: sbobgal, guysmom, Susan L., BuffaloNY101, ceasesmith, BirdyC, Lstockwell, Steadysam, Madetoshop, little_lucy

Also, there are shops that will pay you to have your taxes done. But I would get someone to double-check if you can get it done as a low-income earner. I am on disability and I can earn up to $8000 extra a year with the SS increase I don't know but I have never come close to that. I have never even gotten enough from one company to get a 1099. But I hear that it will be different this year if you have over $600 come in a month from different sources be it Venmo, Paypal, Cash app, They will have to send you a 1099 and if you are not registered as a business you can't deduct mileage or supplies for this year. I guess the IRS is really after the pennies of the poor instead of the megabucks of the wealthy.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2022 10:44PM by 2stepps.

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Liked by: Steadysam

Has the fact that you’re able to work part time as an independent contractor affected your status on disability at all? This is some thing that’s concerned me since I started back up.

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2atepps- do you have a reference link for this. Others have already stated in another thread that this is not true. You can fill out a schedule C and claim deductions as an independent contractor. You do not have to be registered as a business.

“and if you are not registered as a business you can't deduct mileage or supplies for this year.”

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Liked by: walesmaven, BirdyC, Ideagirl

That is simply not true for Federal tax returns. Expenses go on Schedule C as they always have.

@2stepps wrote:

... if you are not registered as a business you can't deduct mileage or supplies for this year. ....

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and southwestern NJ since 2008

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Liked by: walesmaven, mystery2me, Rousseau, BirdyC

Question:
Does anyone know about SeeLevel and how they send there 1099-misc. out. This is the first year I will get one and that’s the last thing I am waiting on so I can complete my taxes. Thanks in advance.

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SeeLevel pays via PayPal, so SeeLevel will not be sending out a 1099-MISC. If you meet the requirements, for getting a 1099 form from PayPal, PayPal will send you a 1099 form. It will not break down the money you received by company and may include reimbursements. You will need to rely upon your records.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and southwestern NJ since 2008

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Liked by: Rousseau, luckygirl0100

You can go to their website and set the filter to show "all", and calculate exactly how much you earned with them this year.

@gocrazy4801 wrote:

Question:
Does anyone know about SeeLevel and how they send there 1099-misc. out. This is the first year I will get one and that’s the last thing I am waiting on so I can complete my taxes. Thanks in advance.

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Liked by: mystery2me, Susan L., BirdyC

Jenni, just keep within the income guidelines and you don't risk your SSDI until you've worked, I believe, 9 quarters.

Just check out the requirements on the social security website.

When I first went on disability in the 80's (broken back), the rules were quite strict -- no work at all allowed. The prevailing philosophy at that time was that if you could work, even a little, then you were absolutely not 100% disabled.

Fortunately, someone woke up and realized that work is great for enhancing the mental health of disabled persons, and the rules were relaxed.

They even have programs in place now to help a person on SSDI to become self-sufficient. I used that program to get a computer and a car to begin mystery shopping. I mystery shopped for over 10 years without ever violating the wage/earnings guidelines.

Good luck!

@originalinvisiblejenni wrote:

Has the fact that you’re able to work part time as an independent contractor affected your status on disability at all? This is some thing that’s concerned me since I started back up.

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Liked by: Susan L., BirdyC

There’s no way I can work consistently enough to make a living wage. So my concern is with me being able to consistently work extremely part time that they’ll consider that enough and kick me off.

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Um....please read what the website says at social security.gov.

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Liked by: BirdyC

I'm always surprised at the number of ICs (in any business) who think that if they don't get a 1099, they don't have to declare the income!

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

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Liked by: Ideagirl, luckygirl0100, CoolMusic

PayPal sent me a 1099-K form and I'm not too happy. I understand that it is up to me to keep records about what is payment and what is reimbursement but I collected several hundred dollars last Fall from a group of friends to make a memorial donation. That certainly was NOT income.

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Liked by: Shopping4funn1

Those payments should not have been included in the 1099-k if they were made as personal transactions.

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Liked by: Shopping4funn1

See they will get you no matter what. They are looking for the low-hanging fruit. Because we do not make enough to keep a tax person on retainer to go over our books every couple of weeks. How many people have separate bank accounts? Or do you mix them all into one account? Keep personal and business mixed in one account. Should have a separate account for taxes. One to pay yourself from. One to pay expenses like food, gas, oil changes, haircuts, and even dry cleaning all for reimbursements. That might be why you could look into a PayPal account for business and personal. Markies Mowers, Margaret's Mowers, Rogers raking all @aol or yahoo or Gmail or any other email that is free .com .org. net.

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Reimbursement-only shops (like many at ACL) don't need to be counted as income, correct?

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Liked by: little_lucy

Correct.

Based in MD, near DC
Shopping from the Carolinas to New York
Have video cam; will travel

Poor customer service? Don't get mad; get video.

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I agree, I do secret shopping work for over 30 companies. I made sure I did not go over the $600 dollar amount for each company. However when I got my 1099k form from pay pal it showed that I made over $4K. My mother sent me mother via paypal as well as I paid for her car repair which was $700. so trying to figure this out. As the paypal includes expenses for items I had to buy as a shopper.

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It doesn't matter how much y9u make from each company, you are required to report the income. IMHO, it is all the people who have thought they could avoid taxes by not receiving a 1099 form that has resulted in the new rule requiring PayPal to report all money sent to a person if the total is over $600. PayPal has no way of knowing what is a fee for an MSC and what is a reimbursement for a mystery shop expense. I hope that you kept good records since you are now going to have to rely upon your records to know the total income (shopping fees), the total reimbursements, and the total other stuff like the payment from your mother. Hopefully, you also kept track of payments that went into your checking account (either as an EFT or as a check). And remember you get to deduct mileage going to and from the mystery shops. All of this gets sorted out on Schedule C.

@Shopping4funn1 wrote:

I agree, I do secret shopping work for over 30 companies. I made sure I did not go over the $600 dollar amount for each company. However when I got my 1099k form from pay pal it showed that I made over $4K. My mother sent me mother via paypal as well as I paid for her car repair which was $700. so trying to figure this out. As the paypal includes expenses for items I had to buy as a shopper.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and southwestern NJ since 2008

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Liked by: luckygirl0100, sandyf

Ok, this is a dumb question - where do I find this 1099k on Paypal? I don't see it anywhere in my account and have never gotten one before. I did not even know about it until I read it here a few weeks ago.

sestrahelena

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Liked by: Tvolgirl, little_lucy

I'm curious as to how many shoppers keep a running tab on their receivables and payments received instead of dealing with everything at the end of the year?

I keep active spreadsheets for the shops I am due payments for and the payments I receive each month, along with one for my monthly bills.

Makes tax time much simpler based on previous experience.

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i do keep track of everything in a spreadsheet.

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I keep a old fashioned notebook and handwrite payments and rem. fees when the payments arrive. I also write the location for mileage purposes.

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@2stepps wrote:

See they will get you no matter what. They are looking for the low-hanging fruit. Because we do not make enough to keep a tax person on retainer to go over our books every couple of weeks. How many people have separate bank accounts? Or do you mix them all into one account? Keep personal and business mixed in one account. Should have a separate account for taxes. One to pay yourself from. One to pay expenses like food, gas, oil changes, haircuts, and even dry cleaning all for reimbursements. That might be why you could look into a PayPal account for business and personal. Markies Mowers, Margaret's Mowers, Rogers raking all @aol or yahoo or Gmail or any other email that is free .com .org. net.

I am not sure what you are saying in the last sentence of your post but there is no need to have a tax person on a retainer or separate accounts for everything you do. I keep a running spreadsheet for all my jobs. It literally takes me less than a minute to jot down what i earned and spent for reimbursement for each job which I do when I enter my report. I do it all on paper and at the end of the year type it all into an online spreadsheet where it can be sorted any way that is useful. I remember someone saying there is an example of spreadsheets somewhere in the new shoppers section of this forum. Schedule C is pretty straightforward so no need to hire someone for that either. Of course if you are working a lot and making big bucks you can afford to hire someone.

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Liked by: walesmaven, BirdyC, little_lucy

If Paypal sent you at least $600 during 2021, they should send you a 1099 either by paper mail, email, or a link. Mine is not there yet.

This is from the Paypal website:
"Where can I find my 1099 tax forms?

To access your Form 1099-K from your PayPal account by January 31 and your Crypto gains and loss statement from February 15, please log into your PayPal account as follows:

Go to [paypal.com].
Select the tax year you need."

@sestrahelena wrote:

Ok, this is a dumb question - where do I find this 1099k on Paypal? I don't see it anywhere in my account and have never gotten one before. I did not even know about it until I read it here a few weeks ago.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and southwestern NJ since 2008

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Liked by: BirdyC, little_lucy

Thanks. I guess it's not there yet. But they could have posted something to that effect when I checked my account.

sestrahelena

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Are any of these available on the shpper website or we just wait for them to be mailed?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2022 07:59PM by itsbree.

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