Form 1099 is one of several IRS tax forms (see the variants section) used in the United States to prepare and file an information return to report various types of income other than wages, salaries, and tips (for which Form W-2 is used instead). The term information return is used in contrast to the term tax return although the latter term is sometimes used colloquially to describe both kinds of returns.
Contents
The form is used to report payments to independent contractors, rental property income, income from interest and dividends, sales proceeds and other miscellaneous income. Blank 1099 forms and the related instructions can be downloaded from the IRS website.
Significance for payee's tax return
Payees use the information provided on the 1099 forms to help them complete their own tax returns. In order to save paper, payers can give payees one single Combined Form 1099 that lists all of their 1099 transactions for the entire year. Taxpayers are usually not required to attach Form 1099s to their own Federal income tax returns unless the Form 1099 includes a report for Federal income tax withheld by the payer from the related payments.
The issuance or non-issuance of a Form 1099 in a particular case is not determinative of the tax treatment required of the payee. Each payee-taxpayer is legally responsible for reporting the correct amount of total income on his or her own Federal income tax return regardless of whether a Form 1099 was filed.
For a variety of reasons some Form 1099 reports may include amounts that are not actually taxable to the payee. A typical example is Form 1099-S for reporting proceeds (not gain) from real estate transactions. The Form 1099-S preparer will report the sales proceeds without regard to the amount of the taxpayer's "basis" in the real estate sold. (Basis is usually the amount of cost incurred by the taxpayer when he or she acquired the property, perhaps years before the sale.) The taxpayer's basis amount is deducted by the taxpayer (on his or her own tax return) from the proceeds amount to determine the gain (if any) on the sale.
In any case, the payee-taxpayer remains responsible for filing an accurate Federal income tax return.
Filing requirements
Each payer must complete a Form 1099 for each covered transaction. Four copies are made: one for the payer, one for the payee, one for the IRS, and one for the State Tax Department, if required. Payers who file 250 or more Form 1099 reports must file all of them electronically with the IRS. If the fewer than 250 requirement is met, and paper copies are filed, the IRS also requires the payer to submit a copy of Form 1096, which is a summary of information forms being sent to the IRS. The returns must be filed with the IRS by the end of February immediately following the year for which the income items or other proceeds are paid. Copies of the returns must be sent to payees, however, by the end of January.
The law provides various dollar amounts under which no Form 1099 reporting requirement is imposed. For some variants of Form 1099, for example, no filing is required for payees who receive less than $600 from the payer during the applicable year. For Form 1099-MISC in particular, businesses are required to submit a Form 1099 for every contractor paid more than $600 for services during a year. This requirement usually does not apply to corporations receiving payments. See the table in the variants section for specific minimum amounts for each form.
The form is used to report income, proceeds, etc., only on a calendar year (January 1 through December 31) basis, regardless of the fiscal year used by the payer or payee for other Federal tax purposes.
Variants
As of 2015, several versions of Form 1099 are used, depending on the nature of the income transaction.
One notable use of Form 1099 is to report amounts paid by a business (including nonprofits) to a non-corporate US resident independent contractor for services (in IRS terminology, such payments are nonemployee compensation). The ubiquity of the form has also led to use of the phrase "1099 workers" or "the 1099 economy" to refer to the independent contractors themselves.
In 2011 the requirement was extended by the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 to payments made by persons who receive income from rental property.
Form 1099 is also used to report interest (1099-INT), dividends (1099-DIV), sales proceeds (1099-B) and some kinds of miscellaneous income (1099-MISC). Blank 1099 forms and the related instructions can be downloaded from the IRS website.
The following table provides information for each variant. Note that for those who have electronic filing of Form 1099 set up, the due date for the IRS is March 31 rather than the last day of February.
History
In 1918, Form 1099 was created by the Internal Revenue Service for use with the 1917 tax year. At the time, employers were required to use the form to report salaries paid in excess of $800.