topic Pay self employment taxes on other income in Get your taxes done using TurboTax

Pay self employment taxes on other income

Twostates — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 07:26:12 GMT

Possible to pay self employment tax on other income (not earned) ?

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

xmasbaby0 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 04:22:02 GMT

It is not clear what you are wanting to do. If you worked as an independent contractor and earned even $400 you need to pay self-employment tax for Social Security and Medicare. Why are you asking about paying self-employment tax on "other" income? What kind of income are you asking about?

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/self-employed/help/what-is-the-self-employment-tax/00/25922

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

Twostates — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 04:28:52 GMT

Unearned income

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

xmasbaby0 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 04:29:54 GMT

If you are asking about getting Social Security credits for income you received from some other "unearned" source, you cannot get SS credits for income that was not earned from working. You get Social Security credits by working at a W-2 job or by working as an independent contractor.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

fanfare — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:27:49 GMT

If you report other income as business income not reported on a 1099 (cash), then you will pay SE tax on that income.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

Twostates — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 04:53:05 GMT

So one can pay SE tax on unearned income? There seems to be two different opinions posted here.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

xmasbaby0 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:03:58 GMT

We still do not know why you are asking about this, although I am guessing that you are looking for a way to get credits for Social Security.

Here is some information from Social Security about how to qualify for credits:

https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10072.pdf

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

Twostates — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:08:48 GMT

Yes for SS credits.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

xmasbaby0 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:10:39 GMT

Okay---my guess was right. And you are still not telling us what the income was. It is very difficult to help when you withhold information or will not answer questions.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

Twostates — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:16:15 GMT

What is the relevance of the type of income?

As stated, it’s unearned income.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

xmasbaby0 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:19:25 GMT

"Unearned" can mean lots of things. We do not know if someone gave you a check in a birthday card, if you won a casino jackpot, invested in the stock market, had rental income, etc. etc. etc. So we cannot answer you.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

Opus 17 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:20:51 GMT

@Twostates

You cannot legally convert unearned income into earned income by pretending it was earned from working and paying SE tax on it. That would constitute tax fraud, if you used it to collect tax benefits such as enabling an IRA contribution or collecting EIC; or it might be considered Social Security fraud, if you used it to earn Social Security credits.

As a matter of fact, one common form of income tax fraud is to create a schedule C and declare a minimum amount of cash self-employment income, such as from mowing lawns. This can sometimes allow the fraudster to collect more earned income credit as a bogus refund than they pay in SE tax. This type of tax fraud has been prosecuted in the past.

While you can certainly prepare a tax return to make it look as though you have self-employment income and pay SE tax on it, it’s not legal to do so.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

Twostates — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:27:49 GMT

There is no intent of fraud here, it was a simple question if one could pay SE tax if they wanted to on unearned income.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

fanfare — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:36:20 GMT

You're better off taking what you would pay as SE tax and investing that yourself (wisely) for the long term.

Put it in a self-directed Roth if you have ( actual ) qualifying compensation.

SS will probably be bankrupt when you retire anyway, It's one big Ponzi scheme.

@Twostates

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

xmasbaby0 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:40:20 GMT

You may not intend any sort of fraud, but your refusal to explain the source of the income makes it suspicious. We cannot help you enter income from some unknown source in order to seek Social Security credits.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

Mike9241 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 06:21:40 GMT

Unearned income must be reported on the proper form. you can not report it on schedule C to pay SE tax. in addition, you will have problems when the IRS computers try to match the 099 they'll receive to what you reported on the appropriate form like schedule B. since you will be showing zero the IRS will send you a bill for unreported income. then you'll have to explain what you did and you can expect a second notice from the IRS to amend your return to correctly report the income.

I should point out you have really told us the nature of this other income.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

Opus 17 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 07:14:48 GMT

@Twostates

Regardless of the intent (I am not a mind reader), the action would be fraudulent. Income is either earned or unearned by the nature of the income, and the nature of the income determines how it is taxed. You can’t choose to pay tax differently to change the nature of the income.

Re: Pay self employment taxes on other income

Hal_Al — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Q. It was a simple question if one could pay SE tax if they wanted to on unearned income.

A. Simple answer: No, it's not optional.

Q. What is the relevance of the type of income?

A. Despite the simple answer, taxes aren't simple. Some activities could be labeled as self employment, in which case you could pay SE tax.

Since you have no doubt that it is unearned income, then you can not claim it as self employment.