Hello!
Besides my day job, I've worked and filed my returns as an independent contractor (karaoke host/DJ) for nearly 20 years, making small but decent profits every year until 2020 when Covid closed the bars I had shows at, and the private party business came to a total standstill. I filed my 2020 taxes as usual (using Turbotax), but for the first time the expenses I had to report exceeded income, because I only made money through March that year.
Flash forward to today, as I work on filing my 2021 return. I had no self-employment income at all in 2021, although I hope to be back to work in just a couple more months. At least I'd get to save myself some work and only file a SIMPLE return for 2021 -- although I still had related expenses it didn't seem right claiming them against zero income.
Here's my conundrum: Turbotax is still insisting I enter my business expenses, even though I've already put in zero for my self-employment income. I went through the expenses menu I'd been hoping to avoid, just entering zeros or hitting return, but it's still showing the expenses questions as "unstarted". And it wants me to fill-in amounts on a 1099-misc for the last bar I worked (in 2020) even though I didn't work there in 2021, and have no current 1099-misc for that employer. And of course it wants me to switch to the more expensive filing plan for self-employed filers even though I'm trying to file a simple return.
Should I simply give in and claim my usual expenses (home office, mileage, advertising, supplies, etc, etc) even though I have NO income to report? Would that actually get me a larger refund? Is that even legal?
So much for having a "simple" tax filing this year.
