<prompt> Human: Hello all! I attend a lot of festivals every year and always volunteer. I was offered a paid position at one festival last summer and its all sorts of confusing now that its tax time. First of all, I signed an independent contractor agreement but only completed a W-9. That is strange, right? In terms of hours, we were told how many 8 hour shifts, morning shifts, and closing shifts we had to work throughout the week, and then were given a large spreadsheet with predetermined shifts and could choose which shifts we wanted. These shifts were first come first serve too since the spreadsheet was a Google doc we were all given access to. So yeah, we kind of got to set our schedule but not really. Lastly, we were paid by check months after the festival because they split all tips combined from the entire week between each server. It was just a business check out of a checkbook with no withholding information. So am I an employee according to the regulations? If so, what should I do about the fact that money was not taken out of my check for taxes, SS, etc.? I know to report everything I made regardless, but just want to see if theres anything else I need to do or bring to their attention.Oh and when I e-mailed them asking for my W-2 they said they are only providing them to those who made over 600.  <response>: From what I see, it appears the independent contractor classification is correct see the link below. You worked for a specific project with a set start and end date, you were not provided benefits, you were able to set your own hours. Now obviously you have arguments as a W2 as well, but for less than 600 I doubt they will agree with you and change it to a W2. So what that means is you owe self employment tax on your profit. Did you have any expenses related to earning the bartending income? Youll owe just under 15 of your profit in self employment tax in addition to regular income tax.Edit: Also your signing a W-9 is right in line with being an independent contractor. Employees sign a W-4 instead. 