His salary comes with withholding, an agent, and a team of people who handle it. Your brand deals come with none of that, and they are taxed under completely different rules. The short version: the money is yours, the business is yours, and so is the tax responsibility that comes with it.
Brand deals are your business, not his
When a brand pays you for a post, a partnership, or an appearance, it is paying you as an independent contractor. That makes you, in the eyes of the IRS, a self-employed business owner, entirely separate from your husband's employment as an athlete. Payers who send you $600 or more in a year will issue you a 1099-NEC under your name and Social Security number, and the IRS matches those forms to your return. Filing jointly does not blend this away: the joint return combines your bottom lines, but your business income, expenses, and self-employment tax are calculated on your own schedules first.
That separateness is also good news. Your business deductions belong to you: content equipment, styling for shoots, travel with a genuine business purpose, a home office used regularly and exclusively for the business, and phone and software costs. Every documented expense cuts the profit that gets taxed.
Schedule C under your own name
Mechanically, your brand income goes on Schedule C attached to the joint Form 1040, with your name on it as proprietor. Revenue at the top, expenses below, and the net profit is what gets taxed twice over: once at your household's regular income tax rate, and again at 15.3% for self-employment tax once your net profit passes $400 for the year. That 15.3% covers Social Security and Medicare, the tax his employer withholds and matches on his paycheck automatically; as a business owner, you pay both halves yourself, then deduct half of it on the 1040. Because your household's other income is large, your brand profit stacks on top of his salary in the brackets, which often means your deals are taxed at the household's highest marginal rate. Plan for that rather than being surprised by it.
Setting aside tax when payments are lumpy
Nothing is withheld from a brand payment, so the tax bill arrives later unless you handle it as you go. Two habits keep it painless. First, move a percentage of every payment into a separate tax account the day it lands; in a high-bracket household, 35% to 40% is a realistic starting point once federal, self-employment, and state tax are stacked. Second, if your business will owe $1,000 or more for the year beyond what his withholding covers, the household should either bump his withholding or make quarterly estimated payments with Form 1040-ES, because underpayment penalties apply per quarter, not just in April. Keep a business bank account, keep receipts, and your brand income becomes a clean, well-run business on the return instead of a year-end scramble.