W-2s and 1099s Due Monday!

If you have employees or independent contractors, you only have a few days left to prepare and issue W-2s and 1099s for them.  January 31 is the official due date, but since it falls on a Saturday this year, you have until Monday February 2 to complete your forms.

Just to be clear, employees get Form W-2, independent contractors get Form 1099-MISC reporting their income.

Since most of the people visiting this blog are more likely to have independent contractors than employees, we will focus on the Form 1099-MISC for the rest of this post.

Do you need to prepare Form 1099 for anyone in your business?

Basically, you must prepare a 1099 if you paid $600 or more to an individual to perform services for you.  Some examples would be web designers, eBay assistants, virtual assistants, affiliates, accountants, etc.

Continue Reading W-2s and 1099s Due Monday!

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1099s Delayed This Tax Season

The IRS has announced that brokers may furnish certain composite annual tax reporting statements by Feb. 17, 2009, without penalty.

The notice provides that the new February due date established under a recent law change to provide Form 1099-B information to customers also applies to other tax information customarily reported to customers with Form 1099-B statements, such as interest and dividends.  This means that customers can expect to receive Forms 1099-INT and 1099-DIV late as well.

If you normally receive Forms 1099-INT, 1099-DIV and 1099-B for investment income and transactions, be aware that these forms will arrive later than usual this year.  Some clients have reported that they have received letters from financial institutions saying not to expect these forms until the end of February (although the official due date is February 17).

As a tax preparer, I’m not particularly happy about this change, but on the bright side, I’m hoping the extended deadline will cut down on the number of corrected 1099s issued this tax season.

Reporting 1099 Income

I first started the Ebiz Tax Tips blog because I was getting a lot of questions from eBay sellers about taxes – whether they needed to report their income, what they could deduct, etc.

That was a couple of years ago.  Since then the number of bloggers, affiliate marketers and other people making money on the internet has exploded.  And the IRS has taken notice!

The number of 1099s that will be issued and received this year will probably be much larger than ever before.

So, you may be wondering, will you get a 1099?  And what should you do if you do receive a Form 1099?  How do you go about reporting 1099 income?

Continue Reading Reporting 1099 Income

Where to Find 1099 MISC Forms

If you paid someone to help out in your business, whether it was a virtual assistant, a web designer, or your affiliates, chances are you need to complete a Form 1099 for them. 

Generally, if you paid an independent contractor $600 or more throughout the year, you need to file a Form 1099-MISC for that person.

So where can you find a free 1099 Misc form?

You can view Form 1099-MISC online at the IRS website.

However, this is an information copy only.  It’s not scan-able, therefore the IRS won’t accept it (they may even fine you for using it).

However, you can order official IRS forms by calling 1-800-TAX-FORM (1-800-829-3676), or by clicking here.

Another resource that I love for filing 1099 forms is FileTaxes.com. 

While it’s not free, at FileTaxes.com you can complete and file various 1099 and other tax forms for a very small fee.  Filetaxes.com will even mail your 1099s for you (exception: they won’t mail the state copies, but they mail copies to the IRS and to the recipient of the form, this is a very nice feature!).

Finally, you can always go to the office supply store to buy tax forms, but they usually come in packages of 10-50 forms and can cost up to $25.