Maybe you advertise online and periodically use your truck as a moving van for residents in your locale who are relocating.
Perhaps you live in a city replete with sports teams and use the Internet to help you snag renters during tournaments and other high-profile contests.
Or it might be the case that online platforms you access publicize your availability to clean houses, repair decks, do taxes or perform myriad other types of work for pay.
If activities such as the above apply to you, you are engaging in what the Internal Revenue Service refers to as the “sharing economy.”
In an online IRS tract spotlighting the sharing economy, the agency notes that it allows persons “to utilize technological advancements to arrange transactions to generate revenue from assets they possess.”
If any of that resonates with you in a that’s-what-I-do way, the IRS likely wants to hear from you.
More succinctly, the tax agency wants its cut.
The IRS is a jealous mistress, and it is quick to point out that “there are tax implications” for those who take in money through the sharing economy.
That can be tricky, of course.
In fact, it might reasonably necessitate a visit to an experienced tax attorney for any individual who profits from new working arrangements enabled through evolving technologies.
Questions abound. How much money has to be involved before filing a tax return — and perhaps paying taxes — is required? Is a filer in a given case an employee or an independent contractor? If a return is required, can a filer claim business expenses and/or depreciation for assets used to generate income or provide services?
Collectively, the work environment in the United States is becoming progressively more decentralized and egalitarian than in times past.
And that new reality is raising many tax-related questions and issues, which can be directed to a proven tax attorney commanding extensive experience representing clients in matters involving the IRS.