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I am purchasing a house and have finished most of the process. My mortgage application has been approved pending some documents; all of these documents are typical except for "Profit & Loss Statement" for 2012.

I do not run a business nor am I buying the house under a business name. I have already turned in all tax papers for 2010 & 2011, but I am being told this is required because I submitted Schedule C with my previous tax years.

The closing date is fairly soon and I don't see how I can research and complete this writeup. What exactly is a P & L Statement? It looks like I have to gather & itemize incomes/sales/costs etc for all of 2012. Considering we're 3 days into 2013, I am no where near prepared for starting any tax work let alone this new form for the mortgage company.

I used a Schedule C because my previous job (mom & pop shop) considered me as a "contractor" I think which results in me transposing numbers from the tax papers (given to me from employer) to Schedule C, as said by IRS instructions ("write the number from form A, line 6, box D into this box on Schedule C" etc).

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  • Do you have a bookkeeping service working for you or a bookkeeping software? If so, you can get a tentative P&L fairly quickly. If you only update your books once a year after the year ends, it might be tricky. P&L is not a tax report, its an accounting report. – littleadv Jan 3 '13 at 21:25
  • @littleadv I have never done that, I'm fairly young and just started a new job. – JBurace Jan 3 '13 at 21:29
  • Well, you can ask them for the format they want and just fill the empty spaces, or get a CPA do that for you. I use GnuCash to track my expenses, and it can create P&L for me for a given period, QuickBooks can do that too, but if you have no idea what I'm talking about then its hard to explain. How did you get a schedule C without any proper bookkeeping and accounting? – littleadv Jan 3 '13 at 21:34
  • @littleadv I edited my question with those details. In a nutshell, they were generated from details from my previous employer. – JBurace Jan 3 '13 at 21:40
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    then write zeroes – littleadv Jan 3 '13 at 22:38
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The bank is asking for a P & L because as a contractor you are in essence running your own business.

Its kind of a technicality, all you need to do is look at any expenses that you paid out of pocket while working there that were job or "business" related. Write a list of those expenses such as "Gas", "Materials", "Legal Expenses", etc. and then show your total income from that job or "contract" subtract the expenses and show your total profit or loss hence Profit / Loss Statement.

I realize that you may not have any real expenses tied to that job although I don't know and if you don't, then simply write in your income, say no expenses and show your "profit/pay" at the bottom of your P & L! Viola! Your Done!

Good luck with the closing!

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