Thanks to passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS is infamously planning to hire 87,000 new workers over the next ten years. What will they be doing? At least some of them will be helping enforce a new reporting requirement that kicks in January 1.
“If you use third-party payment platforms like PayPal, Venmo or Cash App to collect payments for maybe your side gig or your business, now the IRS says they want to know about it if it's over $600,” explains Rob West, who hosts the AFR show “MoneyWise.”
According to a CNBC story, third-party transactions for your side-hustling business had a $20,000 threshold and 200 transactions in a year. That loose requirement was dramatically tightened after the American Rescue Plan Act was signed into law, so now Form 1099-K could be coming in the mail from one of those payment platforms.
West suggests you open that information quickly and read over it because any disagreement must be resolved with the third-party platform, not with the IRS.
West points out that Americans are not being hit with a new tax – they already owe taxes on those items you sell – and he says Christians should follow the instructions of Romans 13 to pay what they owe.
His financial advice for being honest comes with a caveat: It is not wrong to keep an eye on the Biden administration and ask if and how it will use our buying and spending information.
