Is a hobby self-employment?
No, you are not self-employed now that you are a hobby. Are you sure that you cannot itemize. Your hobby loss of $680 is only one of the things that counts. You can also itemize the mortgage interest and property taxes on your house, state and local income taxes, charitable donations, etc. Another thing that I wonder about in reading your write-up is whether you calculated your business/hobby income correctly. You say that you loss because of all of the equipment you buy. You should not be deducting the cost of the equipment all in the year of purchase. You need to depreciate things that have a life over a year, over a period that is usually 5 or 7 years. If you have done that, you might not actually have a loss since you should only be deducting 1/5 or 1/7th of what something costs each year.
