Income Without a 1099

The preparer pulled up Cash App on Sam’s phone.

Transaction after transaction. $200. $150. $85. $320. Some labeled with names — “Couch pickup.” “Garage cleanout.” “Big job Randy.” Some with no label at all. The total for the year was $9,240 across 47 transactions.

“All of this is from junk removal?” the preparer asked.

“Mostly. A couple are from my cousin paying me back for something.”

“Okay, we need to separate those out. The personal stuff doesn’t go on the return. The business income does. All of it.”

Cash, Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, PayPal, checks, handshake deals — gig workers get paid in every form imaginable. None of it comes with a 1099. All of it is taxable. This lesson teaches you how to find it, sort it, and report it correctly.

Tax preparers say this so often it becomes automatic: all income is taxable. Cash income, digital payment income, barter income, income from platform gigs, income from word-of-mouth customers who never send a form. The payment method doesn’t determine taxability. The form doesn’t determine taxability. The act of earning money in exchange for services or goods creates a tax obligation.

For a gig worker, this means everything they collected — regardless of how it was paid and regardless of whether any documentation exists — is gross income on their Schedule C.

Cash App, Venmo, Zelle, PayPal. These are how most service gig workers get paid today. A lawn care operator might take 80% of payments through Cash App and never see a check. The platforms may or may not send a 1099-K — for 2025 the threshold is $600 in cumulative payments. But whether they send a form or not doesn’t change anything. Business income is income.

How to find it: Have the client pull up their transaction history in the app. Go month by month. Mark business payments. Skip personal ones (friend paying you back, splitting a dinner). Total the business payments. That’s the number that goes on Schedule C.

Some clients, especially in trades and services, still work primarily in cash. Bills in hand, no digital trail. This is the hardest income to reconstruct and the most important to ask about carefully.

Your job is not to audit the client. Your job is to help them report accurately. The approach:

Ask about the volume of cash business. “How many cash jobs did you do this year? Roughly how much per job?” Even a rough estimate is better than nothing. A client who did approximately 30 lawn care jobs at around $60 each has approximately $1,800 in cash income. It doesn’t need to be exact down to the dollar.

Look for corroborating records. Bank deposits are the best evidence. If cash income went into a bank account, the bank statement shows it. Ask if the client deposited cash and pull the statements.

Document the estimate. When income is estimated rather than exact, note in your file how the estimate was derived. “Client estimated 30 jobs at $60 average based on their best recollection.” This protects you if questions ever arise.

Selling on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, or Craigslist creates a category question that preparers need to answer before reporting anything: is this a business or a hobby? And for resellers specifically: are these items sold for more or less than they were purchased for?

If Sam picks up furniture during a junk removal job, cleans it up, and sells it on Marketplace, that’s business income — it’s an extension of his business activity. The proceeds go on Schedule C.

If a homeowner clears out their attic and sells 20 items on Marketplace for $500 total, those were probably used personal items sold for less than original cost — no taxable gain. The $600 1099-K threshold doesn’t create taxable income where there isn’t any. But you need to ask the question.

If Sam does a junk removal job for a client and the client pays him with $300 worth of landscaping work instead of cash, both the value Sam received and the value the landscaper received are taxable income to each party. Barter is taxable at fair market value. It comes up occasionally in small trade communities. When a client mentions “we traded services,” the fair market value of what they received goes on Schedule C as income.