Business Return or Self Employed Joint Return

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
December 18, 2023
2 replies
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Can you help me determine if I should file a LLC business tax return or if I should add self employment income to my joint tax return?

We just started renting our home on Airbnb. We live there 6-7 months of the year. This year we made less than 2K in December. I was thinking if we claim that as self employed income on our joint return, all of the business deductions would give us a bigger bang for our buck than if we filled the small income as a standalone business return. We spent a lot of money in 2023 getting the house ready to rent and it won't really do much for us against a 2K Airbnb payout.

We did create an LLC but I can change our W9 with the sites to our personal info if we want them to file it against us directly instead of the business. I am thinking the write offs will be more useful if we file on our personal return rather than as a business.

Opus 17

Level 15

Normally, a rental is listed on schedule E, attached to your personal tax return. To be an active business that would allow you to file on schedule C requires a significant amount of hands-on work by you. @Carl11_2 You still list your rental expenses on schedule E and pay tax on the net profit, if any.

You would never file a stand-alone business return unless you had an S-corp, a C-corp, an LLC that elected to be taxed as an S-corp, or an LLC with more than one member.