Self Employed but no 1099-Misc, 1099-K, or Schedule C forms - how to file correctly?

You definitely still need to report all that income even without receiving 1099 forms! The IRS requires you to report all income regardless of whether you receive tax forms. Here's what you should know: For your situation, you're considered self-employed even without formal contracts. You'll need to file Schedule C (Profit or Loss from Business) to report all your income from these various gigs. Just because you didn't receive 1099s doesn't mean you're exempt from reporting. You should go through your PayPal statements for the tax year and total up all the payments you received for these services. Keep good records of which payments were for which type of work if possible. Report the total on your Schedule C as gross receipts or sales. Remember you can also deduct legitimate business expenses on Schedule C - things like portion of internet costs, computer equipment, software subscriptions used for this work, etc. Just make sure you have documentation for these expenses.

I was in a similar situation last year with freelance work through multiple platforms and no 1099s. I was super confused until I discovered https://taxr.ai which completely saved me! It helped me organize all my PayPal transactions and categorize them properly for tax purposes. The thing I found most helpful was how it analyzed my payment history and automatically identified which payments were likely business income vs personal transfers. Then it helped me properly document everything for Schedule C even without having any 1099 forms. Their system is specifically designed for people in our situation with income from multiple sources that don't provide tax documents.

Just wanted to follow up and say I tried taxr.ai after seeing the recommendation here and it was exactly what I needed! I had no idea how to handle all my scattered PayPal income before this. The system automatically imported my 200+ PayPal transactions and helped me separate the business from personal stuff. I was able to properly file my Schedule C even though none of my gig companies sent me 1099 forms. It even found some business expenses I didn't realize I could deduct! Definitely using this again next year.

If you're still not confident after organizing your income info, you might want to talk directly to the IRS to confirm you're doing everything right. I tried calling them about my missing 1099-K issue last year and it was IMPOSSIBLE to get through - kept getting disconnected after waiting forever. Then I found https://claimyr.com which basically holds your place in the IRS phone queue and calls you when an agent is about to pick up. You can see how it works in their demo: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. I finally got through to an actual IRS agent who confirmed I was filing correctly without my missing forms. Saved me a ton of stress wondering if I was doing it right.

I need to eat my words from my previous comment. After getting frustrated enough with my own situation (missing 1099-K from a payment processor), I decided to try Claimyr even though I was super skeptical. I was shocked when they actually called me back about 45 minutes later with an IRS agent on the line. The agent walked me through exactly what documentation I needed since my payment processor never sent forms. Saved me hours of waiting on hold, and potentially an audit headache. Sometimes the things that sound too good to be true actually work!

Just want to add something important - if you earned more than $400 in self-employment income (total from all your gigs combined), you also need to file Schedule SE to calculate self-employment tax. This is separate from income tax and covers your Social Security and Medicare contributions. This catches a lot of people by surprise because you have to pay both the employer and employee portions of these taxes when you're self-employed, which ends up being about 15.3% of your net earnings.

I do a ton of online surveys and user testing too! Best thing I did was set up a simple spreadsheet where I track every payment as it comes in. I record the date, amount, platform, and type of work. Makes tax time SO much easier because I have everything in one place rather than trying to sort through PayPal history later.

Don't forget that the threshold for PayPal to issue a 1099-K changed! For 2024 taxes (filed in 2025), they're required to send 1099-K if you received more than $5,000 in payments for goods and services. It was supposed to drop to $600 but they delayed implementing that lower threshold again. So if you made less than $5k through PayPal, that explains why you didn't get a form from them.

Great advice from everyone here! I'm also doing gig work and learned this the hard way last year. One thing I'd add is to make sure you're setting aside money throughout the year for taxes since no one is withholding for you. I wish someone had told me that self-employment taxes alone would be around 15% on top of regular income tax! Also, if you think you'll owe more than $1,000 in taxes for the year, you might need to make quarterly estimated tax payments to avoid penalties. The IRS has a safe harbor rule where you pay 100% of last year's tax liability (or 90% of current year) divided into four payments. Form 1040-ES has the worksheets to calculate this. It's definitely overwhelming at first, but once you get a system down it becomes much more manageable!