Keep in mind that this applies solely to the part of your income that is "per notarization"as allowed by your state. It does not include "signing agent" income.
So if your state allows $10 per notarized signature, as in California, and you do a signing package with two docs notarized by two people (four signatures) and you get paid $100 for the job (to keep it simple), you can only exclude the $40 that can be considered "notary income". Conversely, if there are 6 documents to be notarized by two people, you cannot exclude more than the total fee for that signing. So in that example, you could exclude the full $100 you were paid for that assignment, but not $120, which would be 6 signatures x 2 people x $10. In other words, if these examples represented two different assignments, you can't use them to offset each other.
Naturally, this requires the proper record keeping in advance. If you can't produce the right information - and be able to document it in an audit - you may be better off not taking that exclusion from your taxable income for self-employment tax. (This exclusion does not apply at all to your total for income tax calculation.) There are several on this board who recommend you not take that exclusion at all -- or at least very carefully consider the consequences for your particular situation before you do. |
