How to Use Your Lyft 1099: Tax Help for Lyft Drivers
Whether you drive for Lyft full-time or part-time, you’re now enjoying the pay, perks, and prerogatives of being self-employed—from setting your own hours to building customer relations. With the onset of tax season, you face a new business challenge: filing your taxes in a way that minimizes your tax liability. Follow these tips on how to use your Lyft 1099 to complete your tax return and maximize your tax deductions.
Key Takeaways
- If you were paid more than $600 in non-driving income such as referral bonuses, you should receive Form 1099-NEC to document these payments.
- For 2024, if you received more than $5,000 in transactions, Lyft is required to send Form 1099-K to you and the IRS.
- You’re required to report all the income you earn, whether you receive a 1099 or not. See your Lyft Driver Dashboard for a complete record of how much you earned in driving and non-driving income.
Two kinds of 1099 tax forms
Since you are in business for yourself and not an employee of Lyft, you will not receive a W-2 wage and tax statement from the ridesharing company. Instead, you’ll probably receive one or more 1099s, depending on how much you earned from certain services. Here are the forms you are likely to receive and the IRS requirements for issuing them:
- For tax year 2024, Form 1099-K if you generated more than more than $5,000 in gross ride receipts. This is the IRS requirement; however, you are likely to receive the 1099-K even if you have fewer transactions with less gross receipts. There is no threshold for payment card transactions.
- A 1099-NEC (1099-MISC in prior years) if you received $600 or more in non-driving income (e.g. new city bonuses, mentoring, referral fees)
The IRS is gradually phasing in new 1099-K reporting requirements for payments from third-party processors like Venmo and Paypal. In 2021, Congress changed the reporting threshold from over $20,000 in payments and more than 200 transactions to over $600 in payments regardless of the number of transactions. But instead of using the new $600 threshold right away, the IRS applied the previous reporting threshold for the 2022 and 2023 tax years. For the 2024 tax year, the IRS plans to use a $5,000 threshold, regardless of the number of transactions. The tax agency hasn’t announced its plans for after 2024 yet. On the other hand, some states have already started using the $600 threshold for their own reporting requirements.
Keep in mind, you are responsible for reporting all the income you earn, whether you receive a 1099 or not. For example, if you earned $400 in referral fees, you may need to report that income, even if you didn’t receive a 1099-NEC. You can always see exactly how much you earned in driving and non-driving income on your Lyft Driver Dashboard.
Many new Lyft drivers have the misconception that they only need to report income reported on a 1099. This isn’t true; all income must be reported. Failing to report your income can cause tax problems down the road. The IRS can audit your taxes going back three tax years (or six years if the IRS finds you have under reported your income by 25%). If you report both driving and non-driving income next year, but only report driving income this year, that might raise a red flag for the IRS.
Reading your 1099s
Your 1099s include many boxes, but you usually only need to be concerned with one box on each form:
- Box 1a on 1099-K
- Box 1 on 1099-NEC
These report your gross earnings in each category.
You might notice that the amount in Box 1a of 1099-K is larger than the total amount you actually got paid. This is not an error. The figure on the form reflects the total amount your customers paid, including the Lyft commission. Don’t worry, generally you can deduct Lyft fees from your income as a business expense.
Please refer to your Lyft Annual Summary for details about your earnings, online miles, and business-related expenses which may be deductible. The ability to deduct business related expenses may vary based on how you set up your business. Online miles are the sum of all miles including miles:
- driven while you waited for a ride
- when driving to pick up a passenger
- while you were on a ride
How and where to report your Lyft income
As a business owner, you’ll calculate your ridesharing earnings on Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business. If you are using TurboTax Premium, check out How do I enter my Lyft tax information? for step-by-step instructions.
- The total of your driving and non-driving income goes on line 1.
- You’ll subtract your business expenses from your income to find the “net profit or (loss)” from your business and enter that figure on line 31 of Schedule C. Your business expenses will reduce your income and your tax liability.
- You’ll enter the Lyft commission on line 10, “commissions and fees.”
The Lyft Annual Summary sheet also reports your Online Miles, which might only be a portion of your business miles. You’ll enter your total business mileage on Schedule C. These miles are the starting point for calculating your “car or truck expenses,” which you will report on Schedule C.
You’ll use Schedule C to deduct all your business expenses and calculate your business profit. You’ll then report your business profit to the IRS in two places:
- Form 1040, your personal tax form, where you will enter the income that you earned from all sources such as: W-2/employee work, other self-employment, unemployment
- Schedule SE, if your total business income was $400 or more, for calculating self-employment taxes (Social Security and Medicare)
TurboTax Tip:
If you receive multiple 1099s for your ridesharing business, you can combine the income from all of them on one Schedule C, since they all relate to the same business. However, if you have another side gig, such as cleaning services, you’ll typically complete a separate Schedule C for that business.
1099 FAQs
Do I need to complete separate Schedule Cs or SEs for the 1099-K and 1099-NEC?
No. You can combine the income from both 1099s on one Schedule C, since both forms relate to the same business. In fact, you can include the income from any other driving services you may have provided on the same Schedule C.
If you earn self-employment income from other types of businesses, you’ll need to complete a separate Schedule C for each business you run. For example, if you operate a Homejoy cleaning services business, you’ll complete a separate Schedule C for it. To report all your annual income, you’ll need to total up all the profit from your Schedule Cs and use this number on both Form 1040 and Schedule SE.
What mileage can I claim as a business expense for my Lyft driving?
Lyft’s Annual Summary sheet and your Driver Dashboard both show all miles driven while you waited for a ride, were en-route to a passenger, and while you were on a ride. You generally can report all this mileage, because you were working at the time. You might be able to deduct additional mileage if you can show that it was related to your business. To claim business miles from offline driving, you must have detailed records of each trip, including its purpose.
Why are there two 1099s for my ridesharing business?
The rules for the issuance of forms 1099-K and 1099-NEC are spelled out by the U.S. tax code. Lyft provides both to be in full compliance with IRS rules.
Do I send my 1099s to the government along with my tax return?
No. Forms 1099 are not returned with your tax return. Use them to calculate your gross income and then keep them for your records. If you didn’t receive one or both 1099s, report the income from your Driver Dashboard and take a screenshot or print out the page for your records.
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