Just recently my door is being beat down by guys wanting rod repair. I do not sell my rods. I usually build and trade for fishing trips or hunting trips. Up untill now I have not made any money off my hobby, just tradeing. With all this rod repair work I am considering taking some on and chargeing. What do I have to do. I have read some post on this but they all seem to involve lawyers and cpas, I just want to charge for the rod repair and keep it as simple as I can, no lawyers or cpas. Just a simple business. Thanks for any help

Rod repair does not require filing of the 720 Excise Tax Form, but you will be liable for your state and county sales taxes. You will also be running a business so you'll most likely need a state tax number and city or county business license.

You do not necessarily need a lawyer nor a CPA. You will need to keep track of sales and charge sales tax on the parts you use. Overall profit or loss will be figured on an IRS schedule C form and reported on your standard 1040 income tax form. That's about it.

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Income from bartering/trading is taxable income. Keeping it simple. say you have $ 400 in materials and expenses in a rod and you trade it for a trip worth $ 1,000. You have taxable income of $ 600 it's also subject to Self-employment tax.

Erik

The self-employment (FICA/Medicare/Medicaid) tax is potentially limited by the amount paqid through your "real" job. It's calculated on your 1040 form and as part of the Sched C at the end of the year.

You don't need a cpa or attorney. If you can work with a spreadsheet program like Excel you have all you need to keep a quite simple but quite effective set of books. If you want to go a little further there's the Quick Books product, and if you don't have payroll you don't even need the "Pro series - just thebasic Quickbooks. Find out what local buisness license is - some places don't require one unless you have a separate shop, while some others require one if you are running a business out of your house. Be careful if you live in a community where there's a council or something like that, that can tell you what plants you can plant or what color the car in your driveway has to be - many of them don't allow you to have a business in your home for fear of destryoing the "value" of the "community" - but given the recent destruction of housing values for whatever reason, that's a spurious argument at best and largely unenforceable at worst.

Sales and use tax ID's can be had from your State, usually for free or a very small filing fee. If you file a Sched C you do NOT need a Federal Tax ID number (which is free as well). In reality, a lot of folks run this as a "purely cash" (or barter) business and just don't report anything at all. I think that's relatively dangerous but we might as well be realistic about what's going on, yes? If you get caught, there's all kinds of nasty things the local and State folks can threaten you with, mostly back-tax assessments, fines, and penalties. In some cases, though, all they want you to do is get set up and follow the rules from then on. You can always claim ignorance but you usually can't claim stupid.

Don't make it any more complicated than it has to be. But in the meantime, good on ya, that you're doing the kind of work people are willing to pay for and that obviously is good enough to build a reputation for you.

One more thing - don't over-commit. Keep your delivery times realistic including the work itself, drying times, etc. And don't undeprice your work. If you're that good, then it deserves to be valued accordingly.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

Guys thanks for all the feed back. I will be making sure I get things set up before I recieve any money for what I do. Uncle Russ I am not the best by no means but replacing guids is a cinch and here lately I have been just doing it for free. I am a pastor and many of the people in my church fish so it kinda helps with building relationships. I enjoy what I do and you are a big help to almost all of my questions as well as the rest of you. I dont have control over what happens in any other place but my rod room and thats why i like working for free, Its mine, I control it, Not even my wife messes with it and thats what I love about it! And the best thing is I can do things my way and nobody complains when things are free!!

If you do it for free, then you do not need anything along these things.

However, trading for items of value, fishing trips, tackle, etc., are taxable and automatically make you a business.

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