Understanding Your Form 1099-K

General information for independent bartenders about Form 1099-K on this platform: whether you will get one at all, what the reported figure counts, why it is smaller than the service totals you charged, and when your form arrives. This is general information, not tax advice — and it is not part of your agreement with us. Our Terms of Service and payout policies govern, and they control if anything here differs.

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• Your Form 1099-K reports what was settled to your connected payout account — the money that actually reached your account through the platform: your 88% settlement payouts, 100% of your in-app tips, and any cancellation payout or labor-overage distribution paid the same way.
• Most bartenders will not receive one. A Form 1099-K is only issued once you pass high federal thresholds — more than $20,000 in payments and more than 200 transactions in the calendar year. Not receiving one does not mean the income is not reportable.
• If you do get one, it is smaller than the service totals you charged, because our 12% platform fee is retained before any payment reaches your account. It was never in a payment made to you.
• The platform fee is already excluded from that figure. Your taxable income works out the same either way — but if you report the figure from your form as your gross receipts, do not also deduct the platform fee. It was never in that number, so deducting it would subtract the same fee twice.
• A Form 1099-K is an information return, not a statement of your taxable income. Talk to a tax professional about your own return.

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Form 1099-K is an information return. A payment settlement company files it with the IRS and sends you a copy, reporting the payment volume that was settled to your account during the year. On bartendersNow™, that filer is Midnight Logic, Inc. — Stripe prepares and delivers the form on our behalf, but it comes from us.

It is a record of money movement. It is not a calculation of what you earned, what you owe, or what counts as your taxable income. Your return is built from your own books, and the form is one input to that work — not a substitute for it.

You are an independent contractor on bartendersNow™, not an employee of Midnight Logic, Inc. We do not withhold income tax from your payouts, so nothing about this form changes who is responsible for your taxes. You are. (In one narrow case the IRS requires backup withholding — if the taxpayer name and ID on your payout account do not match IRS records and you do not correct them. Keeping your tax details current in your Stripe Express account is how you avoid it.)

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The figure in Box 1a is the total gross amount settled to your connected payout account through the platform during the calendar year. On bartendersNow™ that is:

• Your settlement payouts — 88% of the gross service total for each booking
• 100% of your in-app tips
• Any cancellation payout you were owed when a booking was cancelled
• Any labor-overage distribution paid to you for approved extra hours

Those four things travel the same way: they are transferred into your connected payout account. If it reached your account through the platform, it is in the figure.

• Our 12% platform fee. It is retained before any distribution to you, so it never enters a payment made to you.
• The Host's separate 12% marketplace fee. The Host pays this on top of your service total. It is never settled to your account either.

Neither fee is a deduction taken out of a payment to you. Neither is in the reported figure to begin with.

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This is the part that surprises people in January, so here it is with numbers. Round numbers, to show the shape of the mechanic — not a suggested rate and not a typical booking. Say you charged $1,000 for a booking.

The $880 is what reaches your Form 1099-K for that booking. The $1,000 does not, because $1,000 was never transferred to you — $880 was.

Separately, the Host paid a 12% Host marketplace fee on top of your service total. That money went to the platform, never to your account, and it is not in your figure either.

So if you add up your bookings for the year and compare that total to your form, the form will be lower. That is the expected result, not an error.

A smaller figure is not a shortfall. Your payout for each booking is 88% of the gross service total, plus 100% of your tips — set out in our Terms of Service (Section 6.2) and our Bartender Payout Policy (Section 11.3). Nothing was withheld or taken out of your payout to produce the number on the form. For each booking, the amount reported is the amount that reached your account.

Your annual figure will not always be a clean sum of your payouts. A payout released in January belongs to that January's year, and a payout that was reversed or adjusted after it reached your account may not match your payout records. If yours does not reconcile against your payouts, work through the last section of this page. If you think a payout itself was wrong, as opposed to the form, that is a different question and Section 13.1 of the Bartender Payout Policy is how to raise it.

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The platform fee is already excluded from the reported figure. So if the figure on your form is what you report as your gross receipts, do not also deduct the platform fee — it was never in that number, and deducting it would subtract the same fee twice.

Your taxable income is the same either way. There are two ways to reach it, and your tax professional will pick the one that matches how you keep your books:

• Start from the figure on your form — $880 in the example above — and take no platform-fee deduction; or
• Start from your service total — $1,000, from your own records — and deduct the $120 platform fee.

Both land on $880. What is not correct is mixing them: reporting the $880 from the form and deducting the $120 as well. That subtracts the fee twice and understates your income.

This is a statement about what the figure already contains, not about how to prepare your return. Which approach is right for yours depends on how you keep your books, and that is a question for your tax professional. Bring them this page and your payout records.

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Each booking's event page in the app shows the gross service total, the platform fee and your payout for that booking, as calculated from the booking's rates. My Transactions in the app lists the payouts and tips sent to you, with the amount and date of each. Your Stripe Express dashboard records the payments made to your connected payout account and the transfers from it to your bank — that is the record to compare your form against.

Most bartenders find a form much easier to reconcile when they keep their own record of what they charged and what was retained. Those are your business records, kept however you choose.

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If a form is issued for you, Midnight Logic, Inc. is the filer named on it — Stripe prepares, delivers, and transmits it on our behalf, so the form carries our name and taxpayer ID rather than Stripe's.

You receive it by January 31 following the tax year, or the next business day when January 31 falls on a weekend or a holiday. January 31, 2027 is a Sunday, so forms covering the 2026 tax year are due to you by Monday, February 1, 2027. Yours may be available sooner.

How it reaches you depends on a choice you make: electronically in your Stripe Express dashboard if you have consented to electronic delivery, and by mail if you have not.

One timing detail worth knowing: amounts are reported for the calendar year in which the payout was released to you — the year we sent the money to your connected account — which can differ from the year the Host was charged, and from the year the funds landed in your bank. A late-December event whose payout is not released until January belongs on the following year's form. A payout released in December belongs on that year's form even if the bank transfer arrives in January.

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You get one only if your settled volume crosses a reporting threshold, and those thresholds are high. Under current federal rules you need more than $20,000 in payments and more than 200 transactions in the calendar year — both, not either. Two hundred separate bookings in one year is a great deal of work, so most bartenders on this platform will never receive a Form 1099-K.

A few states set lower thresholds than the federal one, so where you file can matter. California, our current market, is not one of them — the federal threshold is the one that applies there. If you file in another state, check that state's rules or ask your tax professional.

Because the reported figure counts only what settles to your account, it is a smaller number than your booking totals. That means you cross the dollar threshold later, not sooner.

Not receiving a form does not mean the income is not reportable. Your obligation to report what you earned does not depend on whether a form was issued.

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Almost every payout runs through your connected payout account, and that is what a Form 1099-K reports. If we ever pay you outside our normal payout system — for example, if your payout account cannot be used — that payment may appear on a different tax form than usual. Where that happens and a form is required, we send it to you directly.

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We do:

• File your Form 1099-K. Midnight Logic, Inc. is the filer of record. Stripe, our payment processor, prepares and delivers it for us — but the form comes from us, and getting it right is our responsibility
• Get your form to you by the January 31 deadline — in your Stripe Express dashboard if you have consented to electronic delivery, by mail if you have not
• Show each booking's gross service total, platform fee and payout in the app, and list your payouts and tips in My Transactions
• Check it. If you tell us your form looks wrong, we will compare it against our payout records and tell you what we find. Where the reported figure is wrong, we will file a corrected form — we are the filer, so that is our job

We do not:

• Give tax advice, to anyone, ever
• Calculate your taxable income or tell you what to deduct
• Prepare or file your return
• Decide your filing obligations for you

For anything past general awareness — what you owe, estimated payments, deductions, entity choice, or how to file — consult a qualified tax professional.

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Work through it in this order.

1. Compare the form to your payouts, not to your bookings. The form counts what was settled to you, so the payments shown in your Stripe Express dashboard, and the payouts and tips in My Transactions, are the right comparison.
2. Check the calendar year. A payout released in January belongs to that year, even if the event and the Host's charge were in December — and a payout released in December belongs to that year even if the money reached your bank in January.
3. Confirm your tips and any cancellation or overage payouts are included. They belong in the figure alongside your settlement payouts.
4. Still off? Email tax@bartendersnow.com with your bartender account details and the bookings you think are missing or miscounted. If it is your payout amount you are questioning rather than the form, that goes to support@bartendersnow.com with the booking ID.
5. If something was genuinely reported wrong, it can be corrected. We can have a corrected Form 1099-K issued and filed; it arrives marked CORRECTED and replaces the original. Give your tax professional the corrected form, not the first one.

We can explain what was reported and correct it where it is wrong. We cannot tell you how to file.

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• Tax Preparation Tips: General record-keeping and preparation awareness for independent contractors.
• How to Price Yourself: How the platform's fee model affects what reaches your account.
• Bartender Career Roadmap: Building a professional bartending business over time.
• Roles and Responsibilities: What you are responsible for as an independent contractor on the platform.

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This page is information. It is not part of your agreement with us. Your agreement is the bartendersNow™ Terms of Service, together with our Bartender Payout Policy and our Payment & Cancellation Policies. This page does not add to, change, or limit anything in those documents, and it creates no right or obligation of its own. Where this page and those documents differ, those documents control. The provisions this page explains are Section 6.2 of the Terms of Service and Section 11.3 of both the Bartender Payout Policy and the Payment & Cancellation Policies.