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Hello, I’m Scott from Turbo Tax with some information about obtaining your 1099 forms.
Are you waiting for your 1099 forms to arrive
so you can start preparing your tax return?
Or do you need to obtain copies of older ones for some other reason?
If you answered yes to either, there are easy ways to retrieve the forms.
Maybe you earned money this year from working as an independent contractor,
earned interest on your savings account or received any other payment
that needs to be reported on a 1099 form.
Regardless of how you earned the money, having access to all of your 1099 forms
is essential for reporting your income on a tax return.
The person or business that makes the payment to you .
must provide you with a 1099, but only if your total payments
for the prior year are equal to or more than the IRS threshold.
For example, if you work as an independent contractor,
you will only receive a 1099 from those clients
who make payments to you totaling at least $600.
In this case, the payer must provide you with a copy of the 1099
by January 31 of the following year.
If you don’t receive it by then, the IRS recommends that you try and contact the payer—
but if you are still unsuccessful in obtaining a copy
by February 15, you should call the IRS.
But even if you never obtain all of your 1099s,
it doesn’t allow you extra time to file your tax return.
You must, at least, estimate the payments you received.
If your estimate is not 100 percent accurate,
you can always amend your return later.
However, there are other documents you may have
that will provide the same information as a 1099.
For example, if you earn bank interest
but never receive your 1099-INT,
your bank statements will have the same information.
Or if you never receive a 1099-MISC
for your independent contractor work, you can check the invoices you’ve sent to your clients.
You can also obtain transcripts for your older 1099s from the IRS—
but only for the last 10 years. These transcripts aren’t exact copies of the 1099,
but they do report all of the information that was reported on it.
To recover some of your older 1099s,
all you need to do is make a request for them on Form 4506-T
and mail it off to the IRS. And the best part yet—
the IRS will send your transcripts free of charge.
For more information about this and other tax topics visit TurboTax.com.