You know what happens if you fail to report some income? You get a notice 6 months later for the amount owed. That’s it. It’s no hassle at all.
It’s ridiculous that the US doesn’t send a tax bill to citizens like is done in other countries. You get the bill, amend it if there’s anything they missed, and send it back. If they know enough to audit you, they know enough to send the tax bill.
The reason the US doesn’t do that is thanks to lobbying by companies like Intuit and H&R Block.
You don’t want to trigger 1099ks? Use zelle.
https://www.zellepay.com/faq/does-zelle-report-how-much-money-i-receive-irs
As a rule of thumb the IRS won’t audit anybody they can’t recoup more from than the cost of the audit. Maybe $20,000 maybe $40,000.
Obviously, the number should be on the higher end because now the IRS is short staffed.
But venmo will supply a copy of 1099k to the irs and the girlfriend.
Plus the $600 threshold applies in 2026.
2025 is $2,500.
I’m not american but we also have yearly tax here and if I’m ever audited I’m FUCKED. I don’t have a singe document saved. But also I’m super poor so id think they want me
This whole yearly tax thing seems like so much unnecessary work to me. Here in the UK we have a “pay as you earn” system. Taxes get deducted from your wage automatically every time you get paid and it’s all recorded. No extra steps needed. You only need to do extra reporting if you have significant income from other sources e.g. owning a business and getting dividends.
oh, it’s not either/or, we have both. SO FUN!
I doubt there’s a country that doesn’t take deductions for tax on every paycheque. And it’s usually slightly more than you end up owing at the end of the year so they get to use it for half a year.
Doing taxes is basically to get that back, especially if you take advantage of things like retirement savings plans outside of work, or charitable donations that get written off.
That’s not actually how it works for personal payments, right? for example, a group of roommates using Venmo to split rent wouldn’t prompt Venmo to generate a tax form or report to the IRS.
It will, as long as it exceeds the threshold for the year. It will trigger an automatic 1099k. It’s up to you when filing your tax return to “label” it as rent payment.
Venmo categorizes payments differently if they’re repayments between friends or payment for goods and services at the time it’s payed though, and everything I’ve found says they only count payment for goods and services towards the $600 total for the automatic 1099k.
