Form 1099-MISC
File Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income, for each person to whom you have paid during the year:
- At least $10 in royalties (see the instructions for box 2) or broker payments in lieu of dividends or tax-exempt interest (see the instructions for box 8);
- At least $600 in rents, services (including parts and materials), prizes and awards, other income payments, medical and health care payments, crop insurance proceeds, cash payments for fish (or other aquatic life) you purchase from anyone engaged in the trade or business of catching fish, or, generally, the cash paid from a notional principal contract to an individual, partnership, or estate;
- Any fishing boat proceeds; or
- Gross proceeds of $600 or more paid to an attorney
Use Form 1099-MISC to report that you made direct sales of at least $5,000 of consumer products to a buyer for resale anywhere other than a permanent retail establishment. You must also file Form 1099-MISC for each person from whom you have withheld any federal income tax under the backup withholding rules regardless of the amount of the payment.
Report on Form 1099-MISC only when payments are made in the course of your trade or business. Personal payments are not reportable. You are engaged in a trade or business if you operate for gain or profit. However, nonprofit organizations are considered to be engaged in a trade or business and are subject to these reporting requirements. Other organizations subject to these reporting requirements include trusts of qualified pension or profit-sharing plans of employers, certain organizations exempt from tax under section 501(c) or (d), farmers’ cooperatives that are exempt from tax under section 521, and widely held fixed investment trusts. Payments by federal, state, or local government agencies are also reportable.
Exceptions
Some payments do not have to be reported on Form 1099-MISC, although they may be taxable to the recipient. Payments for which a Form 1099-MISC is not required include all of the following.
- Generally, payments to a corporation.
- Payments for merchandise, telegrams, telephone, freight, storage, and similar items.
- Payments of rent to real estate agents.
- Wages paid to employees (report on Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement).
- Military differential wage payments made to employees while they are on active duty in the Armed Forces or other uniformed services (report on Form W-2)
- Business travel allowances paid to employees (may be reportable on Form W-2).
- Cost of current life insurance protection (report on Form W-2 or Form 1099-R, Distributions From Pensions, Annuities, Retirement or Profit-Sharing Plans, IRAs, Insurance Contracts, etc.).
- Payments to a tax-exempt organization including tax-exempt trusts (IRAs, HSAs, Archer MSAs, and Coverdell ESAs), the United States, a state, the District of Columbia, a U.S. possession, or a foreign government.
- Payments made to or for homeowners from the HFA Hardest Hit Fund or the Emergency Homeowners’ Loan Program or similar state program (report on Form 1098-MA).
- Certain payment card transactions if a payment card organization has assigned a merchant/payee a Merchant Category Code (MCC) indicating that reporting is not required. A cardholder/payor may rely on the MCC assigned to a merchant/payee to determine if a payment card transaction with that merchant/payee is subject to reporting under section 6041 or section 6041A. For more information and a list of merchant types with corresponding MCCs, see Revenue Procedure 2004-43 available at www.irs.gov/irb/2004-31_IRB/ar17.html.