Quote Originally Posted by Treefarmer View Post
Hello Jmi52, welcome to the club.

Trading goods and services for cash is a great thing in my experience, because with cash one does not have to beg a bank to give it utility, as one does with a check, at which point one may be considered to be engaged in a "trade or business" with the United States. That would be taxable.

You cannot expect to "rid" yourself of the IRS when you apply for a TIN and an LLC. That is akin to jumping in bed with the IRS.

DH and I once had an LLC and it proved to be a complete waste of time and resources for us. Our tax payments were always higher than our income (popular meaning of the word), after we paid all the bills.
Great way to go into dept.
We dissolved the LLC and went back to business as usual, dba XYZ CONSTRUCTION (DH is a carpenter), except we only accept lawful money for payments anymore.
This works much better for us.

We are not required to file 1040s anymore, because our numbers are too small, but we file 1040EZs anyways, for the EIC and other reasons.

Regards
There is distinction between private business and public business.