Sounds like a huge PITA to hire one’s kid – the parent would have to either do 1099 or payroll, with payroll taxes and everything, then file all the right tax forms for themselves and the kid. Any potential tax savings are eaten by tax return preparation costs (including time).
Not for your own child you employee at home.
For the amounts we’re talking, the child would be exempt from income tax withholding. You may have to create a W4 showing that? Not sure.
No payroll taxes, per IRS Pub 15 Sec 3: “If these payments are for work other than in a trade or business, such as domestic work in the parent’s private home, they’re not subject to social security and Medicare taxes until the child reaches age 21”.
Since no taxes are being withheld, the parent wouldn’t need to create a W-2 or report the payments on their tax return, per IRS Pub 926 (scroll down to “Form W-2” and “Schedule H”).
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Federal OASDI (SS+Medicare) is not the only payroll tax. There’s also FUTA, state-specific SDI and UI, and others like ETT in CA. Don’t know if there’s a similar exception for all of those. If not, the parent may be required to file state-specific forms and make payments to the state. And potentially register as an employer with the state.
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Good point, I overlooked state tax implications.
This may be a dumb question. 
I want to get a jump on taxes. I usually wait for W2 from employer but that is a few weeks away. I am planning to use my last pay stub to populate W2 section in the tax software. I will adjust it as needed when I receive my W2.
Any gotchas or suggestions from folks who do this?
Thanks in advance!
The final pay stub should match the W-2, although I’ve had a few cases over the years where some numbers were not an exact match, but not enough to pursue against a small business that apparently does some of their accounting by hand.
It’s good enough for an estimate, but I always wait for the actual W-2 before filing.
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Penfed credit card question
When I logged in today to Penfed, a pop-up was presented that they changed their credit card payment function. It has moved from transfers to a new ‘make a payment’ button. Does anyone know if existing monthly transfers were carried over? I cannot find them in the new section (make a payment) or in the transfers section.
Thanks for any insight!
Logged in again and noticed the pop-up messages mentioned ‘make a payment’ and ‘manage payments’. I found my monthly transfers/payments in manage payments.
Hope this helps someone else similarly confused!!
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I tried searching must most threads are old. How is plastiq for manufactured spending? When i was renting I used to use Venmo. But now I bought a house and was wondering on people’s experience with
https://www.plastiq.com/.
Thanks!
My understanding is that you can use a personal debit card (not a prepaid) to pay for anything with a 1% fee, prepaids are treated like CCs with a 2.85% fee (yes, higher than it used to be), and mortgages cannot be paid with a Visa CC or GC.
So at least on the surface it’s no good for anything and I haven’t used it in years.
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Thanks Sciprta. The 2.85% is still OK for some manufactured spending. I’ll try it myself and see how it works.
Watch out for your mortgage contract and servicer rules, as many of them do not like or accept partial payments. If you make a partial payment they may treat it as either an additional principal repayment or put it on hold until they receive the rest. The timing of the partial payment may also make a difference in how it is treated (a payment may be “due” between the 1st and 15th so it may be held, but nothing is “due” between “16th” and 31st" so it may be applied to principal). Also don’t be surprised if they notice partial payments and tell you what they think.
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I have auto payments setup I’m assuming if I make a partial payment the auto payment will just pull the rest on the due date but I’ll have to be careful.
That would be way too nice of them. I’d never assume something like that .
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Does anyone know…
if Citi discontinued balance transfer offers now that they offer these flex loans? I used to get checks in the mail all the time but now I get these flex loan mailers. Web site still shows BT option but no offers on any cards. I have not looked in a couple of years.
(Looking to flip 0% balance if anyone is wondering… not trying to do anything stupid )
I got a 1099-nec for the first time this year from selling tradeline. What is the guidelines to be able to do write-off for this? I’ve always been a w-2 worker. Can I write off my new laptop, mortgage payment for the room I use my computer in?
Short answer - probably not. If you use it exclusively for business, then probably. If the latter, you’ve got options.
I would only deduct things directly related to TL sales. examples: credit card fees, PO box rental (if used), etc.
FYI, I started getting BT offers & checks from Citi and others in the past 60 days. I guess the big banks know the pandemic is over 
If it helps anyone else… I have received BT offers from Citi, Chase, Bank of America, Barclays. (off the top of my head)
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