<prompt> Human: I was paid 800 to make a website, hes not a business owner. He wasnt going to give me a 1099. However, because I have income on my regular day job, could I use this 800 as my self employment income? Therefore, allowing me to write off certain things like home office, cell phone, etc? If I report this 800, would he be flag as dodging taxes? Hes just a retired guy that wants his own website.  <response>: He should give you a 1099 if the website was for his business, but its not like you actually need one, so dont worry about that.You must report all income save for some very specific instances. It doesnt matter if he gave you a 1099 or you had a regular job. If this was income you earned, you must report it. It can be a hobby or a business - if this was just for profit, Id call it a business.While being a business means you pay SE taxes, if its a hobby you can only deduct expenses over 2 of your AGI and you have to itemize. And you can only write off expenses up to your revenue cant claim a loss.Therefore, allowing me to write off certain things like home office, cell phone, etc? Yeah, but you can only write them off in proportion to how much you used them for business. If you placed 5 phone calls for this job, and place 300yr for other reasons, youre only going to deduct 1.6 of your expenses. Home office is a whole other issue but Im just going to hazard a guess you cant write it off. It needs to be exclusively used for your website building endeavor. If I report this 800, would he be flag as dodging taxes?I cant talk about what the IRS would do exactly mostly because I dont know!, but note you arent required to list customers, and there could be a presumption that you simply had more than one client clients only report if they spent over 600 on you in one year. 