question about Self-Employment in SF85P

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

I have a side hustle. real estate agents send me vacant home photos for me to photoshop to put furnitures in it. I don’t do the photoshopping part. I send these photos to a guy who lives in Vietnam. He would do the job. then send me the finished products. I would then send them to my clients. Me and him share the profits. Since he don’t speak english and I don’t know how to photoshop, this works very well for us.

But my question is, will this affect my chance of getting EOD and Public Trust? This could consider working outside the country. Should I stop this side hustle to prevent any complication?

Please let me know your thoughts, Thank you

2

So there’s plenty of concern here.

This isn’t just an additional employment activity.

I can’t recall which sections specifically the SF-85 has but here are some overall security flagging concerns to be aware of. Double check with your security management office rep for specific guidance. The various tired investigations have scaled requirements based on position risk so it’s possible not all of the following would apply.

  1. Unreported employment activity. Always list every employment activity within the scope requested. If self employed, be ready to provide a POC with specific knowledge of the activity, any business license details, and state/federal tax info. Basically reportable self employment is anything you are actively licensed, contracted or hired to do for financial gain and/or anything you make money from on a regular basis which is beyond tax reporting requirements/thresholds.

  2. Unreported foreign activity - which includes foreign business partners.

  3. Unreported foreign financial support - which includes foreign business partners and/or agreements (verbal, written or by way of normal/expected regular activity) to provide financial compensation, donation or support.

  4. Unreported income/tax issues, again if the income is beyond the reporting threshold.

  5. Honesty/cooperation issues. Keep in mind, if you choose to not provide these details and the information regarding your real estate interaction is discovered during the course of the investigation, this will flag an additional problem.

If you have already submitted the questionnaire w/o the self employment activity, I believe you can complete a supplemental form to add in the information.

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