Posted by grapebed on 3/11/13 12:52pm
Msg #460545

IRS



"Fees received for services performed as a notary public. If you had no other income subject to SE tax, enter “Exempt—Notary” on Form 1040, line 56. Do not file Schedule SE. However, if you had other earnings of $400 or more subject to SE tax, enter “Exempt—Notary” and the amount of your net profit as a notary public from Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ on the dotted line to the left of Schedule SE, line 3. Subtract that amount from the total of lines 1a, 1b, and 2, and enter the result on line 3."

Reply by MW/VA on 3/11/13 2:50pm
Msg #460569

This has been discussed many times. A lot of us are taking

a deduction & end up paying no SE taxes. It's been pointed out that may not be advantageous to anyone accruing earnings for SS down the road.

Reply by JPH13/MO on 3/11/13 3:07pm
Msg #460581

Remember you can only deduct amount for notarizations...

so if you are in a state like me, Missouri, where you can charge $2 per notarized signature, the amount you make for a signing will be a lot more than the combined total of all notarized signatures needed within the signing. Say I make $125 on a signing, and notarized 6 docs with 2 signatures each - I can choose to not pay self-employment tax on $24 of that $125. If I were from a state that allowed $10 per notarized signature, I could exclude $120 of that $125, and would then be paying into social security only on $5 of $125, which would obviously make my future social security checks extremely low.

Reply by CarolF/NC on 3/11/13 9:00pm
Msg #460659

According to my conversation with IRS you can deduct

whatever fees your state allows that are in conjunction with your notary business. In NC we are not allowed to charge any fees other than the cost of the notarization. If you are in a state that allows travel and other fees you can exclude them.

Reply by John Tennant on 3/11/13 10:33pm
Msg #460668

Absolutely not true CarolF/NC

California allows travel, etc. in addition to the $10.00 per signature. The only SE deduct is for the $10.00 per signature, per signing. If there are more sigs than the amount received for the signing you can use them only on that signing. You cannot carry them over to a signing that paid more than the number of signatures that were done.

Reply by Larry/IL on 3/12/13 3:52pm
Msg #460772

Re: According to my conversation with IRS you can deduct

That there information could get a lot of people in trouble with the IRS.

Reply by CarolF/NC on 3/12/13 4:14pm
Msg #460778

I'm not wrong. If anything IRS Agent is. n/m