I appreciate your fast reply, DawnC, but I'm sorry, I'm just a normal human who was hired by a business to sell hot sauce at a farmer's market, and this answer doesn't make any of that clearer.
Additional context: my employer sent me one tax form (1099-NEC) and there is nothing else written on it other than their address, federal ID number, and how much I earned.
RE: Pub 925, I appreciate you took the time to setup a special link that highlights the relevant section, but a) that is the same response being repeated in other threads about this subject, and b) Pub 925, item #2 is literally the same obscure language that my original post is critiquing (see the quote that I mention there).
How could someone write the sentence in Pub 925, #2 and think it was understandable for the average person? It almost feels like the people who write tax stuff make it difficult to understand on purpose. (Hmmm, wait...Intuit lobbyists can't possibly be involved in this regard. No...)
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As a followup, I couldn't find a straight answer online to how I should answer this, nor any of the other Schedule C questions that were not clearly answered via the form my employer gave me.
Also, note that in order for TurboTax to give me the option to file Schedule C in the first place, I had to pay $69 for their 'Deluxe Edition'.
Schedule C was the worst experience I've had with TurboTax in 6 years of using it. You know how TurboTax provides lots of helpful 'have a question?' icons, explanations, etc. every step of the 1040 process? All of that evaporated as I soon as I agree to pay the Deluxe fee and we enter the Schedule C portion. The screens Turbo Tax shows you for this are a little difficult to describe, but it basically looks like they import a screenshot of the actual tax form, and then put a little dropshadow around the screenshot. There were no helpful context popups for any of the Schedule C items. The only reason I even found this forum is because of searching Google!
Anyways, after 30 minutes of desperate Google searches (and remember, me paying TurboTax $69 for 'Deluxe), I still did not have any clear answers on how to fill out this Schedule C. I made my best guesses and submitted my taxes as-is....and now I've just been notified 'Something went wrong'.
If you've read this far, cheers. Here's hoping that taxes can be done easier one day, with easy to understand language, and without private interests like TurboTax.
Ps. DawnC, I know this isn't your fault directly. If you could pass my feedback somewhere that'd be great. Best wishes
