The problem with explaining the whole 1099-K thing is as soon as you say, "the new form is just additional reporting, you report it as you would before and we c

The problem with explaining the whole 1099-K thing is as soon as you say, "the new form is just additional reporting, you report it as you would before and we can't tell you what the taxes will look like because it depends on what the payments are for (rent, goods, services), business structure, etc," you find out that they never reported their cash payments, don't know what a schedule C is, and don't have any interest in learning. If they don't understand the idea that they are running a business, pay tax on their net profit not their gross profit, that "deducting" business expenses is not an optional thing like itemized deductions, what self-employment tax is (and that it is just the employer and employee portions of a tax that already exists for everyone else), etc. then its hopeless trying to explain these forms to them. In fact, it seems that many of them don't even know if their business is profitable or not, since they have no records of expenses and COGS necessary to calculate that. That's the part that always puzzles me. For what its worth, the idea of users not wanting to pay taxes isn't that new--some websites even advertise that they don't collect sales tax and I will admit to having sought out businesses small enough not to charge it in every state.