Can I deduct the commission paid for doing Lyft and/or Uber? If so, where can I enter this number?

[DianeW]

Yes, if you paid commissions to others to produce income from Lyft or Uber you can enter that as an expense. As a reminder, if you paid any one individual $600 or more you must issue a Form 1099-MISC to those individuals.  You will be asked while completing your business activity and TurboTax will allow you to go to Quick Employer Forms without an additional fee.

This can be completed in TurboTax, after signing into your return by following the steps below.

1. Click "Take me to my return"
2. Select the "Federal"  in the black navigation panel on left
3. Select Income & Expenses at the top
4. Select Self Employment Income and Expenses
5. Follow the screens to enter your business income and expenses > select "Edit/Add"
6. Scroll down to select "Add expenses for this work"
7. Scroll to select "Less common expenses"
8. Scroll to select "Commissions" > select the category and enter your expense
9. Click the image attached to enlarge and view for assistance.

[notcam]

Hi Diane,

As a TurboTax customer I don't understand why TurboTax recommends listing my Uber commission under "Miscellaneous Expenses" on the schedule C. Why can't we list it under "commissions and fees"? It looks really weird the way your software does it. From the answer you gave it's not clear if you understand how Uber's commission works. When Uber sends us our weekly payments, they withhold their commission, or their fees (they usually call it a "service fee"). We don't send any 1099s to Uber, since Uber sends them to us. However, the number Uber lists on our 1099 is our pre-commission "earnings". So the commission definitely still needs to be deducted. And I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that Uber's commissions and fees ought to be listed under "commissions and fees", not under miscellaneous expenses. However, after logging into TurboTax from the special TurboTax partnership link Uber sent me, "miscellaneous expenses" was precisely where TurboTax recommended me to list this common deduction. I'd appreciate a response. Thanks.