I’m an F1 Student. Last year I had Amazon/wish.com/walmart sellers reaching out to me on facebook asking me to purchase their products, and they will refund me sometimes partial, sometimes full amounts paid. I thought oh well, what harm could it do. I figured the sellers were trying to boost their products and it seemed harmless. Since I was not offering any service to them as well like writing reviews etc., It all seemed legal. Couple of days ago I get this 1099-k form from Paypal summing up a bunch of those transactions. This form is issued for any account that receives credit card payments. IRS wants to tax me on those transactions. The problem is, this form is issued to self employed people or businesses. Receiving this form means IRS thinks I was selling stuff or running a business. If I pay tax on those transactions, it means I am accepting that. While that is not true at all, the bigger problem is I am on an F1 visa, and rules stipulate I cannot be self employed or have income through sales without explicit permission from USCIS which obviously I don’t have. Paying that tX indirectly means I am in violation of my F1 status. Seeking help here if someone has been through this situation, or if any tax expert can help me get out of this situation, I would greatly appreciate it. P.S. i am willing to pay a licensed tax expert do my taxes for this year if they can help me figure out a solution to this and justify it to IRS that this income was not taxable. #cpa #irs #tax
you might have worked illegally, if you file taxes it will be on the record, talk to lawyer
Check Dm
Any updates on this ^?
As per https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/how-does-paypal-report-my-sales-to-the-irs-will-i-receive-a-tax-form-1099-k-faq729 you only get it if you received more than 20k or did more than 200 transactions. That seems like a lot. Did you do more than that by any chance? Or are located in one of the other states mentioned in the article?
I have around 50 transactions and abt $2500 in total for those transactions both of which are way below the thresholds. I am located in Illinois, which i’m guessing is probably why I received this form as the thresholds are $1000 or 4 transactions for illinois
Damn that explains it. It sucks that due to such shitty rules and difference in rules you got the form