The answer may very well be "neither."
Here's the deal: as an independent contractor - which is how Uber is treating you - you, and you alone are responsible for keeping books and records of your income and your expenses, and your obligation as a taxpayer is to report your all your income, fully and completely, on your income tax return irrespective of what little pieces of paper prepared by others might report on them. The 1099-K and the 1099-MISC forms were invented by the IRS to "help" independent contractors to not "forget" to report all of their income, but even the IRS understands that neither of these forms might properly represent what actually constitutes "revenue" to you.
Presumably the two Forms under discussion report the same amounts on them, but I have no idea if that's the case, just like I have no idea if either of them is correct or complete. But you, because you've been keeping your own accounting of income do know, presumably, what the "correct" revenue figure to report is, and may also understand that neither form is reporting the correct amount.
You probably feel that, somehow, you must enter one of the other or both forms in your income tax return but that's not the case at all. First off, there is absolutely no line anywhere on any tax form or schedule that states "enter the dollar amount off your 1099-K here", just like there's no place anywhere on any tax form or Schedule that states "enter the dollar amount of your 1099-MISC's here." If you look at Schedule C - https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040sc.pdf - all you report on line 1 is a lump sum of "revenue. (I know that TurboTax asks for and will accept information off 1099-MISC's but none of that detail is transmitted in your income tax return and there is no real need to enter your revenue using the 1099-MISC entry forms. TurboTax asks for a "general" revenue category - meaning revenue not reported on a 1099-MISC - and you're free to put the correct number - whatever that might be - in that box.)
Assuming that neither the 1099-K nor the 1099-MISC has the correct revenue figure - the correct revenue that you determine from your own accounting records - it would be nice if you could somehow reconcile your "correct" revenue number to the numbers on those forms, but still, all you are obligated to report is the correct revenue number.
If it happens that one of the other, or both, forms do report the correct revenue number you are free to simply put that number in the "general" revenue category because, as I said, all the IRS will see in your income tax returns is the number you enter.
Tom Young
