NIL taxes, answered straight

Do I pay taxes on NIL money?

Yes. All of it — and you owe it whether or not anyone sends you a form.

The IRS is direct about this: "You must report all NIL income that you receive even if the payer does not issue you a Form 1099 or Form W-2."

That covers endorsements, sponsorships, social posts, autograph and appearance fees, revenue-sharing payments from your school, and money that arrives as free product instead of cash. The IRS definition is "any monetary or financial gain, in cash, property, or services." Property and services are in that sentence on purpose. A truck you didn't pay for is income.

The form is a payer telling the government what they paid you. Not getting one doesn't mean the money wasn't income — it means nobody filed a piece of paper about it.

Source: IRS, Name, image and likeness income, updated August 14, 2026.

Isn't there a $600 rule? Why didn't I get a 1099 this year?

Because there are two $600 rules, and only one of them just changed.

For tax year 2026 the 1099-NEC threshold rose from $600 to $2,000 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, indexed for inflation from 2027. So a $900 deal that produced a form last January produces nothing this January. The money is identical. The tax on it is identical. The paperwork is gone.

Which leaves a gap worth knowing about: a $1,500 deal in 2026 must be disclosed to your school within five business days, will not generate a 1099, and is fully taxable. All three at once.

If you've been using "did I get a form?" as your record of what you earned, this is the year that method stops working. → More on the two $600 rules

Sources: IRS; Avalara, OBBBA 1099 reporting thresholds; Business of College Sports, CSC July 2026 report.

What's self-employment tax and why does it apply to me?

If you're paid as an independent contractor rather than an employee, you cover both halves of Social Security and Medicare yourself. That's 15.3% — 12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare — and it sits on top of income tax, not instead of it.

You file Schedule SE if your net self-employment earnings hit $400 or more. Four hundred. Not four thousand.

For most athletes with outside deals, this is the piece nobody warned them about — it's the difference between the number they had in their head and the number on the return.

Source: IRS, Self-employment tax, updated June 27, 2026.

How much should I set aside?

We're not going to give you a percentage, and you should be a little suspicious of anyone who gives you one without asking a single question first.

The reason isn't caution for its own sake. The number genuinely depends on things that vary by person: your total income for the year, your filing status, your state, whether the money is contractor income or something else, and what legitimate expenses you had. Two athletes on the same roster with the same deal amount can land in different places.

What we can tell you is that the guessing is real and it isn't your fault. Athletes get told 15% by one person and 30% by another and have no way to reconcile it. That's the actual problem — not the arithmetic, the not-knowing.

What Veloro does instead: you log a deal, and it shows you a CPA-approved estimate; you decide what to move. Based on your own deals rather than a rule of thumb. The app calls the figure "Tax Suggested," never "Tax Owed," on purpose — your real liability could land above or below it. Take it to your tax professional. Don't take it as the final word.

→ Why nobody can hand you a percentage

Do I have to make quarterly payments?

The IRS rule has two conditions, and both have to be true.

You're generally required to pay estimated tax if you expect to owe at least $1,000 for the year after withholding and credits, and your withholding and credits come to less than the smaller of 90% of this year's tax or 100% of last year's (110% if last year's AGI was over $150,000).

The dates are April 15, June 15, September 15, and January 15 of the following year, rolling to the next business day if one lands on a weekend or holiday.

Whether you personally meet those conditions is a question for your tax professional. We can show you what your deals have added up to so far, so you walk into that conversation with real numbers instead of a guess.

Source: IRS, Estimated taxes FAQ, updated December 4, 2025.

Do I pay state tax on it too?

Usually — but state treatment of NIL income varies, and it's one of the fastest-moving parts of this whole area.

Most states tax NIL income the way they tax other income. Some have moved to carve it out. Bills pass, bills fail, and some of what has passed is being challenged in court. The picture has changed more than once in the past year and it will change again.

We're not going to tell you where your state stands, because by the time you read this it may not be true. Check your state's current rule, or ask your tax professional, before you count on anything.

One related thing worth knowing: the IRS notes that athletes should track where they perform services, because they may owe tax in a state they traveled to for commercial work. Crossing a state line for a signing, a shoot, or a camp is not the same as traveling for a game. Logging where a deal happened is more useful than it looks.

Source: IRS, Name, image and likeness income.

Can I write anything off?

This is the one place where the number can actually come down.

Contractor income can be offset by legitimate business expenses — representative and agent fees, training costs, travel for marketing work, equipment, professional accounting fees. The IRS explicitly tells athletes to "keep track of all expenses you incur to earn your NIL income including receipts, purchase orders, travel logs, mileage logs."

Everywhere else on this page, we're clarifying what you owe. Here, real expenses genuinely reduce taxable income.

Two honest caveats. "Legitimate" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and whether a given expense qualifies is a call for a tax professional, not an app. And Veloro logs deductions rather than calculating them into your estimate — the app says so before it'll let you finish logging one. That's deliberate. The point is that when you sit down with your professional, the receipts exist.

The gas you burned driving to a signing is the classic one. It's a real expense and almost nobody writes it down.

Source: IRS, Name, image and likeness income.

I already have an accountant. My mom does my taxes. Is this for me?

Keep them. Seriously.

Veloro doesn't file anything and doesn't replace anyone. It does the year-round part — logging each deal, categorizing it, keeping expense receipts in one place, keeping a running estimate — so that when you get to whoever files for you, you're organized instead of reconstructing a year from memory and text messages.

Athletes in our Boise State pilot who already had help still had a gap on outside deals, because deals arrive one at a time from different places and nobody's adding them up in between. That's the gap this fills.

Delegation isn't the problem. Delegating without being able to see it is.

Does my school see my information?

Yes, in part, and we'd rather you hear it from us.

Users agree in our Terms that WealthIntel may share tax information with their university so the university can administer its portal. If your school is a Veloro partner, this app is not invisible to them.

We're putting that in the FAQ rather than the fine print because you should decide with the real facts. If it's a dealbreaker, it should be a dealbreaker before you sign up, not after.

What does Veloro do — and what doesn't it do?

You log a deal — the in-app assistant walks you through it — and in under two minutes you see what that deal leaves you after estimated tax, what you've set aside so far, and where you stand for the year across every source. Free on iPhone and Android, 18 and over.

What it doesn't do:

• It doesn't give tax advice. Our Terms say the service provides tracking capability, not advice. We're not tax professionals.
• It doesn't promise accuracy. Your actual liability could be more or less than the estimate. It's a number to plan against, not a number to file on.
• It doesn't hold your money. Not a bank, not a wallet, not a payment rail. It shows you a CPA-approved estimate; you decide what to move.
• It doesn't reduce your taxes. It shows you what they are. The one exception is expense tracking, and even there we log rather than calculate.
• It doesn't file for you. Your professional still does that.