Hello carol1912!
Thank you for your question. When you receive Form 1099-NEC, you are considered an independent contractor regardless whether you are registered as a business or not. As an independent contractor, if your business produces an income, you would have to pay self-employment tax (SE tax) which consists of Social Security and Medicare taxes. You figure out SE tax by using Schedule SE for Form 1040. The benefit of being self-employed is you can deduct the employer-equivalent portion of your SE tax in calculating your adjusted gross income (AGI), whereas wage earners who receive Form W-2 cannot deduct Social Security and Medicare taxes.
Since you had a loss on your business, then you have no SE income and you do not owe any SE taxes.
Please refer to the article below for reference regarding incurring a loss on your SE business:
https://budgeting.thenest.com/figure-social-security-tax-3149.html
Please let me know if this answers your questions, or if I can be of further assistance.
Thank you!
Shirleyh88
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