I have received a 1099-MISC from my brokerage account for portfolio related income and TurboTax is applying self employment tax. Is that correct?

[gpause1264]

This self employment tax treatment seems to be appropriate for 1099-NEC or 1099-K but not the 1099-MISC for investment related income.

[PattiF · Accepted solution]

Follow these instructions to enter the portfolio-related income as Other Income, not self-employment income.

Follow these steps in TurboTax Online:

• In the Federal section, under Your income and expenses
• Scroll to Other Common Income
• Select Form 1099-MISC
• Follow the Prompts and enter amount in Box 3, Continue
•  Describe the reason for this 1099-MISC box
• Do any of these uncommon situations apply? check last box
• Select No, it didn't involve work like my main job on Did theportfolio income involve work that's like your main job?
• Answer How often did you get income...Although you may receive this income every year, say that you only receive the 1099-MISC only in 2022, not in previous years and not in 2023, you will then have the screen where you can say that it did not involve an intent to earn money.
• Select No on Did the portfolio income involve an intent to earn money?

[gpause1264]

Thank you, that resolved the issue and eliminated the self employment tax.  I am a bit concerned that I followed your instructions not to mark receiving this income in 2021 even though I did.

This 1099-MISC was from a joint brokerage account and is reported under my SS# but TurboTax does not give me the option to report the income as being for both of us.  

[GeorgeM777]

If you received the income in 2021 then you should report such income on your 2021 return.  Can you provide some more information about the portfolio income.  For example, is it dividend income?  Or is it capital gain income?  Portfolio income could be your share of profits from a managed account.  Thus, if you could provide some additional information about the nature of the portfolio income that would help us to better understand your tax situation.

Are you filing a joint return?  If so, then the income from both spouses gets reported on one return.  

@gpause1264

[gpause1264]

Thank you for your comments.

I received a 1099 from Schwab that included contract fees from 2 investments during 2022.  I also received and reported similar 1099-MISC fees on my 2021 return.  I was surprised that the 1099-MISC income in 2022 was treated as non-employee income when I filled out my 2022 return.  On this return, I had originally marked that I received similar income in 2021 (which I had).  2022 TurboTax then treated this income as non-employee income that is now reported on form 1099-NEC, a new 2022 tax form generated by 2022 tax law changes.  That resulted in TurboTax calculating Self Employment tax on this reported 1099-MISC income on my 2022 return which I knew was not correct.

The first person who responded to my issue said I should just not note that I had not received similar income in 2021.  I made this change and 2022 TurboTax no longer applied Self-employment tax on the 1099-MISC income similar to my 2021 return.  I may not have been clear on my original question but I was concerned that TurboTax was incorrectly applying the Self Employment tax to this income.

Omitting the entry that I had similar income in 2021 fixed the problem but it concerned me that I was now not filling out the tax return correctly.  I did not know whether the 2022 TurboTax program should be updated to correct this issue.

[Prachi]

very helpful response. thank you