|
If you received interest or dividend income,
sold a stock or worked as an independent contractor, you'll get
some version of the Internal Revenue Service Form 1099 to help you
complete your tax return.
As with W-2 wage statements, 1099
forms are to be distributed to recipients by the end
of January. If you don't receive an expected Form 1099
by a few days into February, contact the issuer. Perhaps
the payer has an incorrect or incomplete address for
you. Alert the issuer of the changes and ask for a reissued
statement.
Get a duplicate
Even if they tell you it's in the mail, ask for a duplicate.
If mid-February comes and goes without
arrival of either the original or duplicate statement,
call the IRS at (800) 829-1040 for help in getting this
information.
But you don't necessarily have to
wait for the statements to file your return. You generally
don't have to send in the actual 1099 forms with your
return. They are just issued so you'll know how much
to report, with copies going to the IRS so they can
double-check your tax return entries. As long as you
have the correct information, you can put it on your
tax form without having the statement in hand.
Tracking down
the data
The easiest way to get this missing data is to call
the employer, bank or investment company and ask for
your income information over the phone. In
some cases, the amounts that would be on a 1099 are
readily available from documents you already have.
For example, your bank may put a
summary of the interest paid during the year on your
account's December or January statement. Many
financial companies make the interest figure available
through customer service phone lines or Web sites. And
most investment firms include the year's Form 1099 cumulative
amounts as part of quarterly dividend statements.
If your missing 1099 does finally
show up, don't discard it because you got the information
elsewhere and already filed your return. Check the form
to ensure that the amount there is the same as you reported.
If there is any discrepancy, call the issuer to reconcile
the differences.
When the late-arriving data is correct
and what you filed is not, you'll need to file an amended
return. If you don't,
expect a call from the IRS, because the agency will
use the final 1099 as its basis for reviewing your return
for accuracy.
Common 1099
forms
Below is a table of various 1099 forms. Don't be concerned
if the interest statements from separate financial institutions
don't look alike. The IRS doesn't care what format the
issuer uses. It just wants the income and tax information.
| 1099-B |
Proceeds
from broker and barter exchange transactions |
| 1099-C |
Amount of
canceled
debt |
|
1099-DIV |
Dividends
and distributions |
| 1099-G |
Certain
government and qualified state tuition program payments
(this includes refunds of state income taxes paid) |
| 1099-INT |
Interest
income |
| 1099-LTC |
Long-term
care and accelerated death benefits |
| 1099-MISC |
Miscellaneous
income |
| 1099-OID |
Original
issue discount payments |
| 1099-Q |
Payments
from qualified education programs (Section 529 or
530 plans; Coverdell
account distributions used to be included here,
too, but now have their own Form 5498-ESA.) |
| 1099-R |
Distributions
from pensions, annuities, retirement or profit-sharing
plans, IRAs, insurance contracts, etc. This is an
exception to the nonfiling rule. You will need to
send in a 1099-R with your return if the statement
shows income tax was withheld. |
| 1099-S |
Proceeds
from real estate transactions |
| SSA-1099 |
Social Security
benefits statement |
| RRB-1099 |
Payments
by the Railroad Retirement Board |
Freelance writer Kay Bell writes Bankrate's
tax stories from her home in Austin, Texas, and blogs
each day on tax topics at Don't
Mess with Taxes.
|
