Just FYI - I asked my tax guy about this exact situation and he said not to stress if it's under $600 total for the year. The brands won't send you a 1099 for less than that, and the IRS isn't going to come after a college student over $325 in free mascara or whatever lol.

As someone who's been doing brand partnerships for a couple years now, I'd recommend treating this seriously from the start even though $325 seems small. I made the mistake of not tracking anything my first year and it was a nightmare trying to reconstruct everything at tax time. The key thing to understand is that once you accept products in exchange for content/promotion, you've crossed from "consumer getting samples" to "business receiving compensation." Even if it feels casual now, the IRS sees it as self-employment income. My advice: Start a simple system now while it's manageable. Take screenshots of the retail prices when you receive products, save all your agreements/emails with brands, and track any expenses like phone accessories or backdrop materials you buy for content creation. Even though you're under the $400 self-employment tax threshold, you'll still need to report this as "other income" if you file a return. And honestly, as a college student you should probably be filing anyway to get any refunds you're entitled to from any jobs or financial aid. The good news is that once you have a system, it only takes a few minutes each time you receive something to log it properly!

Has anyone dealt with a situation where they owned two properties simultaneously? I'm a consultant who splits time between two states about 50/50, own homes in both places, and I'm trying to figure out which one would qualify as my "primary" for Section 121 purposes.

Based on your situation, you have a very good chance of qualifying for the Section 121 exclusion. The key factors working in your favor are that you've maintained all official ties to the property (mail, voter registration, tax returns) and it's your only owned residence. The IRS recognizes temporary absences, even extended ones, as long as there's intent to return. Your digital nomad lifestyle doesn't automatically disqualify you - many people travel extensively while maintaining primary residence status. The fact that you've kept most belongings there and maintained it as your legal address are strong indicators of primary residence. However, I'd strongly recommend documenting everything that connects you to that address before you sell. Keep records of your voter registration, tax filings, bank statements, insurance policies, and any other official documents tied to that address. This documentation will be crucial if the IRS ever questions your claim. One potential complication is the partial rental situation you mentioned in the comments. Make sure you're properly accounting for any rental income and be prepared to allocate the exclusion based on the percentage of the home used for personal versus rental purposes. But this shouldn't disqualify you entirely - just affects the calculation. Given the complexity and potential tax savings involved, it might be worth consulting with a tax professional who can review your specific situation and ensure you're maximizing your exclusion while staying compliant.

This is such an important discussion that gets oversimplified in political rhetoric. I've been diving into this topic myself recently, and what strikes me most is how many "mandatory expenses" in the US function exactly like taxes but aren't labeled as such. Beyond healthcare premiums and higher education costs that others have mentioned, I've noticed that Americans often pay significantly more for basic services that are government-provided in the UK. Things like public transportation, childcare, and even basic financial services often require private payment in the US. For example, in many UK cities, you have robust public transport systems funded through taxes. In most US cities, you're essentially forced to own a car (with insurance, maintenance, gas taxes, etc.) - that's thousands in mandatory expenses that don't exist to the same degree in the UK. The retirement savings situation is interesting too. UK state pension plus workplace pensions mean less individual pressure to save huge amounts in 401(k)s. Americans effectively have to "tax" themselves extra to make up for less comprehensive social security. When you add up all these hidden mandatory expenses alongside actual taxes, I suspect the total burden is much more similar between the countries than the headline rates suggest.

This conversation has really opened my eyes to how misleading surface-level tax comparisons can be. I'm a financial planner, and I've seen firsthand how my clients struggle with the "hidden taxes" everyone's discussing here. What really gets me is the psychological impact too. In the UK system, you pay higher visible taxes but then you're basically done - healthcare is covered, education is more affordable, public transport exists. There's a certain peace of mind in that. Here in the US, even after paying your "lower" taxes, you're constantly worried about the next healthcare bill, whether you're saving enough for retirement, if your kids will graduate with crushing debt. It's like death by a thousand cuts - each expense seems reasonable in isolation, but they add up to create this constant financial anxiety that you don't capture in simple tax rate comparisons. I've started telling my clients to think about their "total mandatory expense rate" rather than just their tax rate when making financial decisions. It's eye-opening when you realize that your effective rate of mandatory expenses (taxes + healthcare + transportation + education savings + retirement catch-up) might be 45-50% of income even in "low tax" America. The political rhetoric about tax rates completely misses this reality that ordinary families live with every day.

I've been dealing with this same issue for my online business! One thing that really helped me understand it was thinking about it from the IRS perspective - they want to see the full scope of your business activity, not just what ended up in your bank account. So for Schedule C Line 1, you report your total sales to customers (minus refunds), which shows how much business you actually did. Then in the expenses section, you list all the costs of doing that business - marketplace fees, shipping, supplies, etc. This gives them a complete picture: here's how much I sold, here's what it cost me to make those sales, and here's my net profit. The mistake a lot of new sellers make is only reporting the net amount that got deposited to their bank account as "gross receipts." But that's not what the IRS is looking for - they want to see both sides of the equation separately. Your marketplace fees aren't reducing your sales, they're a cost of doing business, so they belong in the expenses section where they can be properly categorized and deducted. Keep all your marketplace reports and statements - they'll have everything you need to fill out Schedule C correctly!

As someone who's been through this confusion myself, I want to emphasize what others have said - your gross receipts on Line 1 should be the total amount customers paid for your products, minus any refunds. Don't subtract the marketplace fees from this number! Here's a simple way to think about it: if you sold $10,000 worth of products but had $500 in refunds and $1,200 in marketplace fees, your Line 1 should show $9,500 (the $10,000 minus $500 in refunds). Then you'd list that $1,200 in fees as business expenses in the appropriate categories. The reason the IRS wants it this way is because they need to see your actual business volume, not just your net profit. Marketplace fees are legitimate business expenses that reduce your taxable income, but they should be categorized properly in the expenses section where they belong. One tip that helped me: keep a simple spreadsheet tracking your total sales, refunds, and each type of fee throughout the year. When tax time comes, you'll have everything organized and ready to go. The marketplace reports can be overwhelming, but breaking it down this way makes Schedule C much more manageable!

Great question! I went through this exact same situation in Jacksonville last year. Definitely pay your nanny as a household employee, not through the LLC - that's the legally correct way and avoids potential complications down the road. A few practical tips from my experience: 1. Set up a separate checking account just for nanny payments - makes tracking so much easier come tax time 2. Keep meticulous records of hours worked, payments made, and any reimbursements 3. Consider using a service like HomePay or GTM right from the start - I tried doing it myself initially and it was more complex than expected Also, since you're in Florida, make sure you register for state unemployment insurance within 30 days of paying your nanny more than $1,000 in any quarter. Florida's rate is relatively low but it's required. One last thing - have a written work agreement that clearly outlines duties, schedule, pay rate, and house rules. It protects both you and your nanny and makes the whole employment relationship smoother.

Just wanted to add another perspective here - we hired our nanny about 6 months ago and went through all this research too. One thing I wish someone had told me upfront is to budget for the "employer portion" of taxes on top of the nanny's salary. You'll pay an additional 7.65% in Social Security and Medicare taxes (matching what you withhold from the nanny), plus Florida unemployment insurance which runs about 2.7% on the first $7,000 of wages. So if you're paying your nanny $15/hour for 16 hours a week, budget an extra $100-150 per month just for your employer tax obligations. Also, start the paperwork process early! Getting an EIN (employer identification number) from the IRS can take a few weeks, and you'll need that before you can properly set up payroll. Florida's unemployment registration was pretty quick online though. The good news is once you get everything set up, the ongoing process isn't too bad. We use GTM Payroll and it's been worth every penny for the peace of mind.