Tax Questions Answered for Airbnb Hosts, Lyft Drivers and Kickstarter Campaigners

As the “sharing economy” becomes a real thing and not just a figment of some ambitious tech startups’ imaginations, more and more people are making money from doing other people’s errands, renting out their own homes, offering rides in their cars, posting their dreams on Kickstarter and selling their crafts online.

But what happens come April, when U.S. taxes are due? Yikes.

1099.is — named after the U.S. self-employment tax form — is a new Q&A site launched by a seed investment outfit called the Collaborative Fund, which has backed TaskRabbit, Getaround and the fundraising platform Rally.org, among others.

1099.is has answers to questions like what amount of sharing economy income you should report (Answer: Any, even if it’s below $600, and you don’t get a form automatically), should you start your own business (Answer: Quite possible, and probably an LLC), and what car expenses can you deduct for driving for a ride-sharing service (Answer: Depreciation, licenses, gas, oil, tolls, etc., etc.).

But 1099.is also has standard disclaimers on every page that it shouldn’t be construed as actual personal tax advice.

Collaborative Fund CEO Craig Shapiro said he was inspired to create the site after using Fenwick & West lawyer Ted Wang’s helpful “Series Seed” site, which provides standard basic fundraising documents for startups and investors.

Tax advice, said Shapiro, is “a common pain point among entrepreneurs, creators, and backers, of this community, yet no one (that we know of) has spent the time or energy to try and solve it holistically.”