The answer to your question is as follows.
If the type of royalty income ($10,000) you have is a result of your own academic work, authoring credit, textbook royalties from a publisher, or any other work of art or literature that you created yourself, then you would indeed consider yourself "self-employed" under the tax law definition of the term. Therefore you will have to report your income on a Form 1040 Schedule C (and Schedule SE) for the self-employed.
On the other hand, if your royalty income is from natural resources (oil, gas, minerals) etc., or from something that you did not create or author yourself, then it is simply royalty income to be reported on Form Schedule E . . . which is where rental income is also reported.
Thus, there is a difference in tax treatment; and it will depend on nature of the royalty. The former is subject to self-employment taxes as well as ordinary income taxes, whereas the latter is only subject to ordinary income taxes. That said, you can deduct valid expenses incurred in the production of either kind of royalty income, and that will reduce the amount of your royalty income subject to taxation.
Depending on the nature and your type of your royalty, therefore, the data entry pathway in TurboTax will be different. The clickable links below will show the mechanical instructions needed to begin enter either kind of royalty income into the program. Obviously, you should chose the one that is applicable to your particular circumstances. Also, it does not really matter if you received a Form 1099-MISC document, or not, from a third-party reporting the income to you. Royalty income is still taxable income even in the absence of such an official form.
https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2972604https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2835497Thank you for asking this important question.
