If I received an award on a 1099-MISC do I have to pay self employment taxes???

[Patrice]

Yes, if the income is located in Box 7 of your 1099-MISC then the IRS requires that you be responsible to pay self-employment taxes.  

However, if the award is located in Box 3 then you would enter it as "other income" on line 21 and it would not be subject to self-employment taxes.

The key to getting TurboTax to treat it as other income is to follow these steps:

 Enter the 1099-Misc

On the next screen Describe what the payment was for

On the next screen select "none of these apply"

On the next screen select "No it didn't involve work like my main job"

On the next screen select "I got it in 2016" ONLY 

On the next screen select No, it didn't involve intent to earn money

TurboTax will put the amount on line 21 as other income

[rjkannan]

Makes more sense - however the software is deducting self employment tax when I input the value in Box 3?  How do I work around this?

[Patrice]

The key to getting TurboTax to treat it as other income is to follow these steps:
 Enter the 1099-Misc
On the next screen Describe what the payment was for
On the next screen select "none of these apply"
On the next screen select "No it didn't involve work like my main job"
On the next screen select "I got it in 2016" ONLY 
On the next screen select No, it didn't involve intent to earn money
TurboTax will put the amount on line 21 as other income