Do I need to file a 1099 for babysitting gig income of $570?
Hey everyone! So back in September I was watching this family's kids for a few weeks while they were dealing with some family emergency. I made a total of $765 through Venmo (they sent payments each time I babysat). That's literally the only money I earned all year since I'm a full-time student. I'm kinda confused about taxes now - do I need to file a 1099 for this babysitting income? The payments were broken up into different amounts each time but added up to $765 total. I've never filed taxes before and don't know if this small amount even requires reporting or if I need to ask the family for paperwork. Any help would be awesome!
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Jessica Suarez
You technically don't need to "file a 1099" - the family would be responsible for issuing you a 1099-NEC if they paid you $600 or more as an independent contractor, which it sounds like they did. However, many families don't realize they're supposed to do this for babysitters. Regardless of whether you receive a 1099, you're still required to report the income when you file your taxes. As a self-employed individual (which is what you are for this babysitting work), you need to report all income on Schedule C, even amounts under $600. The IRS threshold for filing a tax return is $12,950 for a single filer (for 2024 taxes filed in 2025), but self-employment income has a much lower threshold - you need to file if you made $400 or more in self-employment income during the year.
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Marcus Williams
•Wait so even if the family doesn't give them a 1099, they still have to report it? That seems unfair. And what about the app fees that Venmo might take? Should those be deducted first?
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Jessica Suarez
•Yes, all income is technically reportable regardless of whether you receive a tax form. The $600 threshold is just for when the payer is required to issue a 1099 - it's not a threshold for when income becomes taxable. As for app fees, those would be considered a business expense that you could deduct on your Schedule C, along with other eligible expenses related to your babysitting work. This might include portions of your phone bill if you used it for the job, supplies you purchased for activities with the kids, or transportation costs to and from the job.
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Lily Young
I was in a similar situation last year with some tutoring gigs and was totally confused about all the tax stuff. I found this service called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that was super helpful for figuring out my situation. You just upload screenshots of your payment history and it tells you exactly what you need to report and how to file. It saved me a ton of time trying to figure out if I needed to file as self-employed or what forms I needed.
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Kennedy Morrison
•Does it work for other types of gig work too? I do DoorDash and some TaskRabbit jobs and never know what I'm supposed to report.
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Wesley Hallow
•Is it free? Last thing I need is to pay more money just to figure out how to pay taxes on my side hustle money. Also does it help with finding deductions? That's where I always get stuck.
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Lily Young
•It definitely works for all types of gig work! I've seen people use it for food delivery, rideshare, freelance writing, handyman jobs - pretty much anything where you're getting paid directly and not as a traditional employee. It analyzes all your payment streams and sorts everything properly. The service does have a cost, but it's way less than what I would've paid an accountant for the same help. And yes, finding deductions is actually one of the best features - it looks at your specific gig type and suggests all the deductions you might qualify for. It saved me over $300 in taxes by identifying deductions I had no idea I could claim.
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Wesley Hallow
Just wanted to update - I actually tried taxr.ai after asking about it here and wow, it was super helpful for my situation! I've been doing random odd jobs all year and was stressing about taxes. The system showed me that I could deduct my mileage for driving to jobs and even part of my phone bill since I use it for scheduling. Ended up finding like $1200 in deductions I never would have known about. Totally worth it for peace of mind and saving money!
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Justin Chang
For what it's worth, I had a similar issue last year when I was trying to get clarification from the IRS about my side gig income. Spent DAYS trying to get through on their phone line. I finally tried this service called Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) and they got me connected to an IRS agent in like 15 minutes. There's a demo video here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. The agent confirmed that yes, you do have to report babysitting income over $400 even without a 1099, but you can deduct related expenses against that income.
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Grace Thomas
•How does that even work? The IRS phone line is always busy whenever I call. Are they hacking the phone system or something?
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Hunter Brighton
•Sounds fishy to me. Why would I pay for something when I can just keep calling the IRS for free? Eventually they'll pick up, right? I've heard horror stories about these "get through to the IRS" services being scams.
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Justin Chang
•They use a system that keeps dialing for you and then alerts you when there's a connection. Totally legit and not hacking anything - just automating the painful redial process we'd all do manually. No scam at all! I was skeptical too but it actually works. And yeah, you can keep calling for free if you have hours to waste on hold or getting disconnected. But after trying to get through for three days straight with no luck, the time saved was absolutely worth it to me. The IRS agent I spoke with gave me specific guidance that probably saved me from making a costly mistake on my taxes.
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Hunter Brighton
I have to eat my words. After getting super frustrated spending an entire Saturday trying to call the IRS about my tax situation (similar to OP's), I broke down and tried Claimyr. Got through to an actual IRS person in under 20 minutes. The agent confirmed that babysitting income is considered self-employment and needs to be reported on Schedule C if it's over $400 for the year. He also confirmed I could deduct reasonable expenses. Saved me hours of frustration and uncertainty.
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Dylan Baskin
Something else to consider - if this babysitting was a one-time thing and not something you're doing regularly as a business, you might be able to report it as "other income" on line 8 of Schedule 1 instead of as self-employment income on Schedule C. This means you wouldn't have to pay self-employment tax (which is an extra 15.3% on top of regular income tax). But it's kind of a gray area and depends on your specific situation.
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Jay Lincoln
•Hmm that's interesting! So how do I know if my situation counts as "regular business" vs just "other income"? I did babysit for them for about 3 weeks but it was just while their regular childcare was unavailable.
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Dylan Baskin
•It comes down to whether you're in the "trade or business" of babysitting. If this was a one-off situation where you were helping out a family temporarily with no intention of continuing to offer babysitting services to the general public, you could make a case for "other income." But if you advertise your services, do this for multiple families, or plan to continue babysitting regularly, the IRS would likely consider it self-employment. Since you mentioned it was just for a few weeks during a specific situation, it sounds more like "other income" to me, but this is definitely a gray area where reasonable people disagree.
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Lauren Wood
I think you're overcomplicating this. I've babysat for years and never reported any of it lol. If they didn't send you a tax form, the IRS has no idea about this money. It's cash/venmo. No one is tracking $765.
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Ellie Lopez
•This is terrible advice. Venmo now reports transactions to the IRS if you receive more than $600 in payments for goods and services. Plus not reporting income is literally tax evasion.
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Lauren Wood
•Venmo only reports if you have a business account or mark the payments as goods and services. Regular personal payments aren't reported. And let's be real, the IRS isn't coming after babysitters making a few hundred bucks. They want the big fish.
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