It is my understanding that money earned annually from royalties on a book written awhile ago (over 10 years ago for mine) should not be considered business or self-employment income. Here's what I found from a website dealing with these issues: "an author who wrote a book, but who is not otherwise engaged in the trade of writing for profit, would not have to pay self-employment taxes on the book's royalties." Yet, TurboTax doesn't give this option. Could you please look into this and give me an answer other than "authors are considered a business and need to report royalties as self-employment income" that I've found several times in this forum? I don't think this is accurate, but TurboTax doesn't allow for any other option. Thank you.
