1099 Tax Issue

March 14, 2006 12:38 PM

Oops tax seasons here and I accidentally threw away my 1099 forms...

(i had three of them).... do I need them or can I just add up the money I made from the companies and put that on my tax form?

Also does irs.gov already have a copy of these forms and if so can i access them some how?

posted by matimer to law & government (5 comments total)

In the past, when I have lost 1099 or W2 forms, I have contacted the companies who supplied them to me, and requested replacements.

They have always been happy to accomodate me.
posted by dersins at 12:42 PM on March 14, 2006

I've done the same, and had no problem getting a duplicate copy from the company who had sent it to me.
posted by MasonDixon at 12:59 PM on March 14, 2006

it depends on what kind of 1099s they were. INT? MISC? etc. etc. like, if it was the INT one, and you made less than $X in interest (i think 10$), you don't need to declare it or bother with it, so you don't need the forms.

it's probably best to just contact everyone you got the forms from though.

and, you should probably file for an extension now, as it's doubtful you'll get the new forms in time to meet the 4/15 deadline for filing.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:26 PM on March 14, 2006

I was able to pull up the 1099 from my brokerage account through TurboTax. I believe it just asked for the login/password that I use to access my account through the brokerage's website. The 1099 was also available electronically on my brokerage's website.
posted by mullacc at 1:36 PM on March 14, 2006

There are two possibilities--First, if there was any tax withheld (that does sometimes happen)--the issuers would have reported that on the 1099, and you would need to report the taxes in order to have them applied to your final tax bill on your 1040. And you would need to mail in a copy of the 1099 with the withholding (if you mail your return). If you e-file, then you would still want the exact amount of tax and the issuer's tax id number, etc--which are on the 1099. So if there were taxes withheld you definitely want to get replacements for those 1099's.

Second case--if there was no withholding, it doesn't really matter too much as long as you report at least as much gross income of the types reported on the 1099's. If you report less, you'll get a letter from the IRS.

And anyway, just to have a complete file for your records, you should get replacement copies. It's not that uncommon for people to request replacements, and because of that issuers keep copies at hand.

So just go ahead and request the copies.

The issuers do send copies of the 1099's to the IRS and there is a matching program to confirm that 1099 recipients are reporting all their income. Or at least as much as was reported to the IRS by the payers.
posted by gg at 4:47 PM on March 14, 2006