I work as a College Baseball Umpire, working as an independent contractor. I have 2 questions:

1) I get 1099's from each school where I work. Three of the schools I worked at, I made less than $600 for the year. My understanding is that I do not have to claim this because it is below the minimum of $600. Is this true?

2) I get a per diem and a mileage reimbursement over and above my game fees. On the 1099, they lump in the mileage reimbursement, per diem, and flight reimbursement with the total taxable income... For example, a 3 game series pays $540 for game fees, $300 for per diem (to be used for hotels and food), and mileage reimbursement at about $0.40 per mile of $35. They are taxing me on all of these totals, but I thought I should be getting taxed on only the game fees. Should I claim only the game fees as income, or should I enter my income identically to what is on the 1099 even though it taxes my expense allowance?

Thanks for taking the time to answer me.

John

IRS rules state that you must report all income. The school doesn't have to report it, however. That's not a license not to report it. If you are audited and discovered, you'll have to pay taxes and penalties on it.

OK John, so you fill out a 1040 and a schedule CEZ.
You post the totals of all your 1099s as your gross income. Now you may deduct up to $5,000 in expenses (mileage, hotels, food, etc.). You should be able to prove this.

So, even though they showed your reimbursements as income you deduct those as expenses. It all comes out to the same thing.

Agreed.

Further, note that the mileage rates for 2008 are 50.5 cents for 1 January to 30 June 2008 and 58.5 cents for 1 July through 31 December 2008.