[jespasinthru]

Three years ago I got audited by the IRS for painting a mural in the courtyard garden of a local in-house mental health facility. I painted it at night, after work, and it took me six weeks to do all three walls. I put my heart and soul into it. They paid me ten thousand dollars for it. The company declared it on their taxes, and so did I. But when I filed my taxes that year, I go a nasty letter from the IRS. They said I owed them five thousand dollars for painting that mural, and if I didn’t pay up they’d put a lien on my house. For a measly five thousand buck! Needless to say I paid them, just to get them off my back. So you see, it’s not just the big Tea Party organizations who are being harassed and shaken down by the Big Government gestapo.

[X-spurt]

They said I owed them five thousand dollars for painting that mural

I hate to sound stupid, but why the heck would you owe $5k in tax for a $10K job? Would be great to hear more on the IRS’ rationale or as Paul Harvey said “the rest of the story”.

[piasa]

I'm assuming because it was a self-employed job you had to pay the employee half & employer half of the social security tax on your earnings... yes that stings, it's why there's more right wing artists than people think. The left wing artists apparently don't bother to claim their earnings or they'd be ticked too.

But that is still too much for them to require of you - didn't you deduct anything for expenses such as tools, supplies, gas, etc?