Company Not Sending 1099

If the company that is supposed to send out a 1099 form to you has not sent out one, you may have to fight with them to get it. Although, as a rule for 1099 forms, the company is supposed to report certain business transactions to the IRS and at the same time send out the 1099 forms to the payees, some companies are not complying with the IRS.

Is the company breaking the law by not sending out the 1099 forms?

By not sending out 1099 forms to all persons who are entitled to receive them, the company is not complying with the IRS rules but there is no criminal charge that will get the company in trouble so some of them decide to cut costs and not send them out.

What to do when you have not received the 1099 MISC form?

If you are an independent contractor, a self employed individual, a sole proprietor, etc (not a corporation) then you are supposed to have sent out the W-9 form to the company that is paying you. Then the company is supposed to report transactions to the IRS on a 1099 form as well as sending out the 1099 MISC to you.

If the company does not, then it is your responsibility to obtain it from them. The IRS does not require that you have the form as long as you know how much you have made during the year and can report it correctly on your tax return. If the company can tell you how much you have made and you are not disputing that amount, then you can use that number to file and prepare your tax return even without having the 1099 MISC form. Many people file and prepare their taxes without the 1099 MISC forms.

Possible problems with not receiving 1099 MISC forms

Although the IRS does not require that you receive the 1099 form, they have a 1099 form about how much the company claims that you made on file because even when the company does not send you the 1099 form, they surely sent one to the IRS.

That means, you will have no proof of how much the company claims that you made. They could tell you that you made $10,000 whereas they told the IRS that you made $20,000. When the IRS gets round to auditing all the tax returns and you reported $10k and the company reported $20k then the IRS will send you a letter demanding tax payment on the portion not reported by you.

If you have a 1099 MISC from the company, then you can produce that 1099 MISC form and prove to the IRS that you are correct. However, if you do not have the 1099 form, it will be difficult to prove to the IRS that you are correct and their 1099 form on file is incorrect. Bear in mind that it could be a couple of years before the IRS inquires so most people would have forgotten what happened by then.