I get that but just trying to gather knowledge instead of just blindingly believing what a CPA might say. Option a, filing it as self employment, would make me pay self employment fees which is relatively expensive (in my case it would make a difference of $5000 fee vs a refund). Option b, makes me blame the company and petition IRS to query them why they didn’t report it on W2 and risk ****ing someone off. So just wondering what people did in the past to make an informed decision