Hello, this will be my first time filing a 1099-MISC and I'm a little overwhelmed by it. Let me first start by saying that I'm 29 and always done my own taxes on turbotax.

So I did a side project in my part-time and received a 1099-MISC for around $3,000 for contract labor for an office conversion. I usually file 1040 but was prompted that by receiving a 1099-MISC that it is for a self-employed business and now I must file a Sch. C. So answering all of the questions that I was asked it started going into car, phone, and home office deductions.

I think I correctly answered that my car is not just for business use and that I only traveled 200 miles for this work done over a 6 month period. I also bought this car new last year and it asked me if I used it for this job which I said yes. So now it's wanting me to write off depreciation and a portion of my insurance payments giving me a mileage deduction total of $1,300. This seems like a bit much. It also tells me I can write off a depreciated value for my computer that was bought in '07 as well as a portion of my cell phone bill during those 6 months.

I don't want to be audited (no one does) and this just seems a bit over the top for 6 months of an office renovation job I did on the side.

Am I doing it wrong?

TulsaBandit:

RUN, Don't WALK, to an local, experienced tax professional to prepare this return.

There are so many pitfalls in filing Schedule C that ii should NOT be attempted by an amateur.

In fact, I would not trust it to a fair number of "tax professionals" who work for the franchise tax shops (H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, Liberty Tax), because many of them are little more than data enrty personnel who are over dependent on their tax software.

The potential headaches with the IRS that using a tax pro will save you is MORE than worth the $200 you will pay the tax pro to prepare your return.