How to Handle a Missing 1099 Form
Stumble It!
Digg It!
Tip It!
del.ico.us
FacebookHave you received all your tax paperwork? Every year around this time I get questions from people who are missing a Form 1099 and aren’t sure what to do. In case you’re not familiar with the lingo, IRS Form 1099 is used to document various forms of income, including things like:
- Interest earned (1099-INT)
- Dividends received (1099-DIV)
- Cancellation of debt (1099-C)
- Government payments (1099-G)
- Proceeds from broker transactions (1099-B)
- Retirement distributions (1099-R)
- Miscellaneous income (1099-MISC)
There are more, but I’ve hit the big ones above. When these forms are issued to you, the issuer is also supposed to send a copy to the IRS. This allows the IRS to keep closer track of how much money you’ve earned.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when it comes to Form 1099, however. First, a 1099 is generally not required unless you earned more than $600 from that source during the year. This doesn’t mean the income isn’t taxable, just that they payer doesn’t have to issue a 1099. Second, payments to a corporation don’t require a 1099. Thus, if you’re self-employed and have incorporated your business, you might not receive any 1099s.
What if you didn’t get a 1099 form?
Assuming that you’re truly due one or more 1099s, you should have received them by now, as the deadline is January 31st. If you are expecting one and it hasn’t shown up, your best bet is to contact the payer. If it still hasn’t shown up by February 15th, you can call the IRS at 800-829-1040.
Note that you don’t really have to have all of your 1099s to file your taxes, as you don’t usually need to attach them to your return. As long as you can accurately piece together your income (as well as any income taxes withheld) from other sources, you can just go ahead and report it without documentation.
If you file your taxes and later receive a 1099 that you had forgotten about, you’ll have to amend your return using IRS Form 1040X.
Published on February 5th, 2010 - 9 Comments
Filed under: Taxes
email this article
- bookmark it
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
Related articles...
» How to Handle a Missing W-2 Form» Do Kids Have to Pay Taxes? All About the Kiddie Tax
» Lending Club and Taxes
» Are Unemployment Payments Taxable?
» Top Tax Scams, Part 2
» What is Backup Withholding?
» How to Get an Employer Identification Number (EIN)
» What is the Average Cost of Tax Preparation?
Was this article useful? Please sign up to receive our content via e-mail:
9 Responses to “How to Handle a Missing 1099 Form”
Leave a Reply
Financial Shopping Center
Mortgage rates are at an all-time low
Earn interest on your savings
Find lower insurance rates
Featured Credit Cards
-
Chase FreedomSM Visa - $100 Bonus Cash Back
Earn $100 Bonus Cash Back after you make $799 in purchases in your first three months. No Annual Fee. 5% cash back offers in popular categories. See terms.
-
Discover® More® Card - $75 Cashback Bonus®
$75 Cash Back when you make $500 in purchases in the first 3 months. No annual fee. 5% to 20% Cashback Bonus at over 150 top retailers Discover's online shopping mall. See terms.
Great deals...
Readers’ choice...
Recent articles...
- What Tinky Winky Taught Me About Money
- Historical Mortgage Rates
- Tax Deductible Moving Expenses
- Chase Sapphire Preferred 25k Point Signup Bonus
- Starting a Kitchen Garden
- Why You Should Keep Your Financial Advisor
- The High Cost of Being Single
- Planning for Your Demise
- Social Security Taxes in 2010
- The Future of Social Security
Most talked about...
- Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math
- $8,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Dish Network Customer Service SUCKS
- Pay Off Mortgage Early? Or Invest?
- How to Claim the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Reduced Credit Limits? Share Your Experience
- $15,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Would the "Fair Tax" Gut the Economy?
- Termite Control: Sentricon vs. Termidor
- $7500 First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Current High-Yield Online Savings Account Rates
- Tax Stimulus Rebate Payments to Start Early
February 5th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
What about cases where you would get a 1099, but one wasn’t sent because the amount was small? For example, Lending Club only sends a 1099-DIV for income over $10. If your income was less than that, how do you declare it on your tax return?
February 5th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
You should handle it the same way as if you had received a 1099. Even if you got one, you wouldn’t submit it with your return. You would just report the income.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Extremely timely, my wife was asking me the same thing last night. She’s our kids school PTA treasurer. Thanks Nickel!
February 8th, 2010 at 10:52 am
IF it is a 1099R (Retirement income), the check writer will gladly reprint (e.g. Merrill Lynch, Bank of NY, etc..)Also, you can pester your former employer.. squeaky wheel gets the reprint!
Of note – if you are a survivor receiving payment, the 1099R’s must be in sync with the Social Security Numbers. That is to say: If husband was alive from Jan to March, and wife received payments April to Dec. The 1099R’s must show that, even if the annuity amounts were the exact dollar. More random knowledge that you will use once in your life time.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:34 am
excellent post. we recently had a user asking us about what to do if the 1099 form had the wrong social security number. obviously we advised the user to request a corrected 1099 from the company. It’s details like these that often get overlooked. once again – nice post.
February 10th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I am missing the 1099 forms because of Fidelity. Here is what they said:
“We are writing to inform you that Fidelity will mail your 2009 (Forms 1099) Tax Reporting Statement no later than February 28. Fidelity is taking this action to reduce the number of “corrected” tax statements you could receive.
Please note the following:
We will be mailing selected tax statements in late February because certain third-party tax information will not be available in time to be included in the tax statements mailed by the legal deadline (February 15).
The third-party information includes data for certain non-Fidelity mutual funds, unit investment trusts, mortgage pool securities, and real estate investment trusts.
We are able to mail your tax statements in late February because we received a mailing deadline extension from the Internal Revenue Service…”
April 12th, 2010 at 10:53 am
where do i get my unemployment 1099 form if i misplaced or didnt get one for filing my taxes this year. can i get one over the internet and where.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:14 am
did you get my number one question i sent you about my 1099 form
April 26th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
My husband was self-employed and issued a 1099-misc to contract labor in early 2009 (TY2008). It is only now that I have discovered that we lost our copy of this form. I can piece together the amount that was reported on the form. What alerted us to this is that we received a letter from the IRS stating that the SSN listed on the form did not match their records. But now I see that I cannot find the form. Please help!