@smarcy18 wrote:
I am a teacher and I attended a workshop where I was paid a stipend. I was sent a 1099-MISC and Turbo Tax has be filling out a schedule C; this just does not seem correct? Any ideas?
The payor is treating this as "non-employee compensation." That is to say, you are being compensated for work you performed or a service you provided, but are not an employee of the paying organization. This is in contrast to "unearned" income where you might be paid for winning a contest.
Generally, if you have non-employee compensation, you are treated as being a self-employed person (independent contractor), at least for purposes of that part of your income. That requires a schedule C, to report the income, deduct expenses, and pay income tax AND self-employment tax on your net profit.
In Turbotax Online, you can report the income in the Deluxe version but you can't deduct any expenses. If you upgrade to The Self-Employed version (most expensive) then you can deduct expenses, such as if you traveled to attend the conference and were not already reimbursed.
If you think this was not compensation for services performed, you can try and report it as "other income" not subject to self-employment tax. But the IRS will send you a letter because they automatically consider box 7 income to be self-employment income.
To report this as "other income", enter the 1099-MISC and answer all the testing questions "no". (Not like your regular job, no intention to earn a profit, not part of an ongoing trade or business, etc.)
