Walmart Spark drivers are independent contractors, not employees. Nothing is withheld from your pay, you report the income on Schedule C, and you owe self-employment tax on top of income tax.
The 1099-NEC. The Spark Driver help documentation says drivers receive a 1099-NEC (or 1099-INT), with tax documents available by January 31 following the tax year. For the 2026 tax year the reporting threshold rose from $600 to $2,000 under Public Law 119-21, commonly called the One Big Beautiful Bill — so fewer drivers receive a form than in prior years. The threshold governs the platform's duty to report, not your duty to declare the income. You owe tax on what you earned whether or not a form arrives.
Self-employment tax. IRS Topic 554 sets it at 15.3% — 12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare — charged on 92.35% of net self-employment earnings, and owed once net earnings reach $400. As an employee your employer pays half of this for you; as a contractor you pay both halves. This is why a gig app's hourly figure is not comparable to an hourly wage.
Quarterly estimated payments. The IRS says individuals generally must make estimated payments if they expect to owe $1,000 or more when the return is filed, using Form 1040-ES. Set money aside from net earnings — after mileage and other deductions — not from the gross figure in the app.
Mileage is usually the largest deduction, and Spark gives you no log. The Spark app shows trip pay history, which is a payment record: it does not carry the dated distance, destination and business purpose the IRS expects. Spark publishes no tax-ready mileage or trip export. Note that 2026 is a split-rate year — miles driven January 1 to June 30 are deducted at a different standard rate from miles driven July 1 onward — so a single annual mileage total cannot be applied correctly. Dates are required.
Other deductible costs, each in proportion to business use and each needing the receipt kept: the business share of your phone and data plan, insulated bags and coolers, phone mount and charger, parking and tolls paid while on a trip, car washes and cleaning supplies, and the Schedule C portion of tax preparation. Standard mileage and actual vehicle expenses are alternatives, not additions — you pick one method per vehicle, and vehicle insurance, gas and repairs are only deductible under the actual-expense method.
What ExpenseBot does for a Spark driver. It captures receipts and order confirmations from Gmail automatically, accepts photo uploads for paper store and gas-station receipts, keeps a dated mileage log, and organises everything into Schedule C categories in a Google Sheet you own in your own Google Drive.
What it does not do: there is no Spark trip import and no Spark CSV import, because Spark publishes no such export — no tool can import what does not exist. There is also no automatic GPS capture of your driving. You add trips in the mileage tracker by entering start and end addresses and letting it calculate the distance, by importing trips from Google Calendar, or by entering the miles directly. Uber and Lyft do publish trip CSVs, and those can be bulk-imported.
ExpenseBot is spend capture: it is not a general ledger, does no double-entry bookkeeping, and does not file returns.
Estimates — confirm with your tax professional.
Full guide: Spark driver taxes