Do you have to pay taxes if you are using Square for a Fundraiser Event?

[Anonymous6]

Hi Team,

I am holding a Fundraiser for my Volleyball Team and am thinking of using Square as a payment option for guests coming to our fundraiser.

I am not a business owner and understand Square is solely for businesses. Our fundraiser will only last 5 hours. We did not want to use Venmo, Cash App or PayPal because of the possibility of it crashing due to the multiple transactions throughout the night, and it being labeled as "Suspicious Activity". 

If I were to deactivate the account after receiving the Debit card and making payments on behalf of the Volleyball Team, would I still need to pay Taxes for this account? or does anyone know of any other Payment Apps that allow you to have multiple transactions without crashing?

Thank you!

[SVLFever]

Hello @Anonymous6 ,

To be very clear, this forum can not provide legal and/or tax advice, and you need to seek out a tax professional to officially and properly answer your question.

With that being said, I'm 99.99% certain that Block(Square) is legally required to provide a 1099-K to the FEIN that is associated to the account.  How the taxes impact the FEIN is for the entity with that tax ID number to resolve.   I would think that if you had some sort of 501c3 FEIN, then the taxes might be exempt, however as I have mentioned, you will need to contact a tax professional to verify.  I am not a tax professional, which is what I pay my accountant for.

I have no experience with other platforms, so I can't help you there.  Sorry.

Good luck with your event.