The $20,000 Liberation: How Trump Just Saved Your Side Hustle Sour Dough Business

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the “Big Beautiful Bill Act,” officially ending one of the most punitive tax reporting requirements in recent memory.

The legislation restored the original $20,000 revenue and 200-transaction threshold for 1099-K reporting, reversing the Biden administration’s $600 threshold that had transformed every Orthodox side hustle into a federal case study.

Under the previous $600 threshold, Orthodox families found themselves trapped in regulatory quicksand where Mrs. Goldstein, who sells her Sour Dough to neighbors for $36 each, discovered that her 50 annual sales triggered the same federal reporting requirements as Jeff Bezos.

The yeshiva bachur earning Lechaim money by tutoring younger students received 1099-K forms implying he operated an educational services corporation.

The absurdity peaked when payment platforms began treating personal transactions as commercial activity.

Orthodox families who split restaurant bills through Venmo, collected building fund contributions via PayPal, or reimbursed each other for group grocery purchases suddenly appeared to be running sophisticated financial enterprises. One family I handle the finances for received three separate 1099-K forms: one for collecting money for their daughter’s wedding, another for selling their old minivan, and a third for organizing a group order of esrogim from Israel.

These weren’t businesses in any meaningful sense—they were community members helping each other navigate the expensive realities of Jewish life. Yet the federal government insisted on treating it as entrepreneurial activity worthy of professional bookkeeping and tax preparation costs that often exceeded the actual income generated.

The $600 threshold created a particularly cruel trap for Orthodox families already struggling with tuition payments and kosher expenses.

Compliance costs for professional tax preparation often consumed entire “business” profits, forcing families to choose between maintaining their modest income streams or avoiding bureaucratic complications they couldn’t afford to manage properly.

The restoration of the $20,000 threshold acknowledges what should have been obvious: meaningful commerce requires meaningful revenue. The Orthodox entrepreneur earning $3,000 annually from home-baked challahs operates differently from someone generating $30,000 monthly through e-commerce.

One deserves the freedom to operate informally; the other merits professional oversight and federal attention.

Anyways, this change liberates thousands of Orthodox micro-entrepreneurs who had been forced underground by compliance costs and restores common sense to tax compliance, allowing Orthodox families to earn supplemental income without requiring advanced degrees in federal reporting requirements.