1099s Made Easy
The complete foundation
Tax Year 2026 · Filing Season 2027
Tax clarity for people who work for themselves.
Short chapters. Worked examples. Checklists you can finish. The 1099s Made Easy series turns complicated tax language into a practical plan for independent work.
Educational guides — not professional tax advice.
Figures checked against published IRS numbers
The collection
Start with the guide that fits your work.
One complete 1099 foundation, followed by focused guides for the expenses, records, and filing questions that show up in different kinds of independent work.
Free reference
Look it up before you buy anything.
Three references that settle a question on the spot: which form arrived, what the number comes to, and which sheet of the return it lands on. All of it read from the IRS's own pages.
What arrived
The 1099 series, form by form
What each one reports, the amount that triggers it, and both due dates.
How much
9 calculators
Self-employment tax, quarterly payments, mileage and the rest — on this year's figures.
When
Every date, and the day it lands on
Published, or moves because it falls on a Sunday. Most calendars never say which.
Where it lands
The schedules behind the return
Where a deduction sits decides which taxes it reduces, not just how much.
From the blog
Useful tax habits, one clear step at a time.
Practical reading for independent workers who want fewer surprises and better records.
Zelle sends no 1099-K. The income still counts.
No form, whatever the total, Zelle says. What you were paid for is income all the same.
The app reports what you were paid for, not what friends paid back
A 1099-K covers goods and services. Gifts and repaid costs are not income, and a wrong form can be zeroed out.
There are no self-employed tax brackets.
Same brackets as a W-2 — plus a flat 15.3% beside them, and two deductions that pull the total back.
A state grant to your business is income
Taxable, reported in box 6 — and the form never says which line it goes on.
Over $10,000 abroad, even for one day, is an FBAR
Every foreign account added together at its peak. Filed online, not with your return, and due by October 15.
The contract says contractor. The IRS reads the relationship.
Three kinds of evidence decide it, and a wrong call leaves the employment taxes with the business.
Deductions for the self-employed, by where they land
Schedule C, Schedule 1, Form 1040 — each deduction in its place, with the test that decides it.
How much tax on 1099 income?
Two taxes, no withholding, four due dates — and a safe harbour that protects a guess.
Sole proprietor taxes: the business files nothing.
Schedule C, then Schedule SE, then four payments on Form 1040-ES — one person, one return.
A calmer way to learn
No jargon. No filler. No scare tactics.
Start with the document in front of you, connect it to your records, then follow the number to the return. The four steps opposite are the same practical sequence used throughout the guides and free tools.
See how every figure is checked- 01Know what arrivedUnderstand the forms in front of you before you start.
- 02Match income and recordsBuild one complete picture, including payments without a form.
- 03Track expenses as you goUse simple routines that are easier to maintain than to reconstruct.
- 04Ask better questionsBring organized information to your tax professional.
