Pay self employment taxes on other income

[Twostates]

Possible to pay self employment tax on other income (not earned) ?

[xmasbaby0]

It is not clear what you are wanting to do.   If you worked as an independent contractor and earned even $400 you need to pay self-employment tax for Social Security and Medicare.  Why are you asking about paying self-employment tax on "other" income?   What kind of income are you asking about?

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/self-employed/help/what-is-the-self-employment-tax/00/25922

[Twostates]

Unearned income 

[xmasbaby0]

If you are asking about getting Social Security credits for income you received from some other "unearned" source, you cannot get SS credits for income that was not earned from working.   You get Social Security credits by working at a W-2 job or by working as an independent contractor.   

[fanfare]

If you report other income as business income not reported on a 1099 (cash), then you will pay SE tax on that income.

[Twostates]

So one can pay SE tax on unearned income?  There seems to be two different opinions posted here.

[xmasbaby0]

We still do not know why you are asking about this, although I am guessing that you are looking for a way to get credits for Social Security.

Here is some information from Social Security about how to qualify for credits:

https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10072.pdf

[Twostates]

Yes for SS credits.

[xmasbaby0]

Okay---my guess was right.  And you are still not telling us what the income was.   It is very difficult to help when you withhold information or will not answer questions.

[Twostates]

What is the relevance of the type of income?

As stated, it’s unearned income.  

[xmasbaby0]

"Unearned" can mean lots of things.  We do not know if someone gave you a check in a birthday card, if you won a casino jackpot, invested in the stock market, had rental income, etc. etc. etc.   So we cannot answer you.   

[Opus 17]

@Twostates  

You cannot legally convert unearned income into earned income by pretending it was earned from working and paying SE tax on it. That would constitute tax fraud, if you used it to collect tax benefits such as enabling an IRA contribution or collecting EIC; or it might be considered Social Security fraud, if you used it to earn Social Security credits.

As a matter of fact, one common form of income tax fraud is to create a schedule C and declare a minimum amount of cash self-employment income, such as from mowing lawns. This can sometimes allow the fraudster to collect more earned income credit as a bogus refund than they pay in SE tax.  This type of tax fraud has been prosecuted in the past.

While you can certainly prepare a tax return to make it look as though you have self-employment income and pay SE tax on it, it’s not legal to do so.

[Twostates]

There is no intent of fraud here, it was a simple question if one could pay SE tax if they wanted to on unearned income.

[fanfare]

You're better off taking what you would pay as SE tax and investing that yourself (wisely) for the long term.

Put it in a self-directed Roth if you have ( actual ) qualifying compensation.

SS will probably be bankrupt when you retire anyway, It's one big Ponzi scheme.

@Twostates  

[xmasbaby0]

You may not intend any sort of fraud, but your refusal to explain the source of the income makes it suspicious.   We cannot help you enter income from some unknown source in order to seek Social Security credits.