Best way to handle taxes while working Doordash and regular W-2 job during college?

8 As someone who's been juggling W-2 and 1099 work for years, I can help clarify this for you! Your W-4 at your fast food job only controls withholding for that specific job. Unfortunately, you can't use it to withhold taxes for your Doordash income. As a Dasher, you'll be considered an independent contractor (self-employed), and Doordash won't withhold any taxes from your payments. For the forms question - you'll receive a 1099-NEC from Doordash (if you earn $600+), but you'll still only file one 1040 tax return. The 1099 income gets reported on Schedule C (business income), and you'll also need to complete Schedule SE to calculate your self-employment tax. The best approach is to set aside about 25-30% of your Doordash earnings for taxes. You might need to make quarterly estimated tax payments if you expect to owe more than $1,000 in taxes for the year.

12 After dealing with exactly this situation last year, I found an awesome tool that saved me so much stress with my mixed W-2/1099 income. Check out https://taxr.ai - it analyzes both your W-2 and 1099 documents to make sure you're maximizing deductions and properly reporting everything. I was mixing up what counted as business expenses vs. personal until their system flagged it for me. The best part is it breaks down exactly how much you should set aside for quarterly tax payments based on both income sources. It also helped me understand which mileage tracking method would save me the most money in my situation.

3 I was skeptical about tax tools too until I tried https://taxr.ai after seeing it mentioned here. As a student with both W-2 and gig work, I was really confused about tracking expenses and quarterly payments. The tool flagged that I wasn't accounting for my phone bill percentage used for Doordash - which ended up saving me over $200 in deductions! It also reminds me when quarterly payments are due, which I always used to miss. Definitely worth checking out if you're mixing income types.

19 If you're going to be Dashing regularly, you'll probably have questions for the IRS at some point. After waiting on hold for HOURS multiple times, I found https://claimyr.com which got me connected to an actual IRS agent in under 20 minutes. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I had a mess last year because I wasn't making quarterly payments on my Doordash income and had no idea how to fix it. Got hit with penalties I didn't understand. The IRS agent I spoke to through Claimyr explained exactly how to set up proper quarterly payments and even helped me reduce some of the penalties since it was my first time dealing with self-employment taxes.

3 Just wanted to follow up about Claimyr since I was so skeptical. I actually tried it when I needed to fix an issue with my estimated tax payments for my Doordash income. I was shocked when they called me about 15 minutes later and connected me directly to an IRS representative! Saved me literally hours of hold time, and I got my question answered about how to properly categorize my delivery expenses. Will definitely use this again next time I have tax questions.

5 One important thing nobody mentioned - keep track of ALL your expenses for Doordash! You can deduct: - Mileage (this is the big one) - Part of your phone bill - Hot bags/delivery equipment - Car maintenance - Even part of your car insurance I've been dashing through college for 2 years now, and these deductions make a HUGE difference in what I actually owe.

14 Be careful with mixing W-2 and 1099 work! I messed up last year and ended up owing WAY more than I expected. Make sure to use the Self-Employment Tax Calculator on the IRS website to estimate what you'll owe.

As a college student who just started mixing W-2 and gig work myself, I can't stress enough how important it is to track everything from day one! I made the mistake of not keeping receipts for my first month of delivery work and it was a nightmare trying to reconstruct my expenses. One thing that really helped me was opening a separate checking account just for my Doordash earnings. I deposit everything there and then transfer my estimated tax portion (about 30%) to a savings account immediately. This way I'm never tempted to spend my tax money and I always know exactly how much I've earned from gig work versus my regular job. Also, don't forget that as a student, you might still qualify for education credits even with the additional 1099 income - just make sure your total income doesn't push you out of eligibility ranges for things like the American Opportunity Tax Credit.