A 1099 is not a bill. It is a notice: the company that paid you told the IRS what it paid you, and it withheld nothing, because you were not its employee.

A W-2 job takes the tax out of every check before you see it. Side-job money arrives whole. The tax on it is still owed — just later, and by you.

The two forms you will see

  • 1099-NEC — a company paid you directly for services. The dollar threshold for issuing it was changed by law for payments made after 2025, so check the current figure on IRS.gov — and do not plan around it: the tax is owed on what you earned whether or not a form arrives.
  • 1099-K — a payment processor or marketplace handled the money. This threshold has been changed several times in recent years, so look up the current one on IRS.gov instead of trusting a remembered number.

The part people get wrong

No form in the mail does not mean no tax. Thresholds decide who has to send you paperwork, not whether the income counts. The IRS says self-employment tax generally applies once your net earnings from self-employment reach $400 for the year, at a rate of 15.3%.

“Net” is the useful word there. It is what is left after allowable business expenses — mileage, supplies, platform fees. A mileage log is one tap per trip and it changes the number you are taxed on.

If the form does not match your bank

A 1099 often shows more than what actually reached your account, because it reports gross pay before platform fees came out. That is not a reason to ignore it. Keep your own payout records for the year, and take the specifics to a tax professional — what you personally owe is not something an article can tell you.