Major New 1099 and W-2 Filing Deadline

Beginning in 2017, businesses are required to file the 2016 W-2 form and 1099-MISC form to the Social Security Administration (SSA) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS), by January 31. This is regardless of whether the forms are being filed electronically or by paper. Previously, filers had until March to electronically file some 1099s. The January 31 filing deadline for 1099-MISC only applies to businesses reporting non-employee compensation payments in box 7. With these new filing deadlines, it would be prudent to start preparing for these tasks sooner rather than later. 

Prior to the new deadline, January 31, businesses were only required to provide employees/contractors W-2 and 1099-MISC forms by January 31, and they had until February 28 (paper) or March 31 (e-file) to submit the forms to the SSA or IRS. The new January 31 deadline for filing forms W-2 and 1099-MISC means businesses will face major challenges as they prepare wage and income data for 2016, now due January 31.

The IRS set new deadlines to make tax documents more readily available to taxpayers prior to April 15, reducing the taxpayer’s need to request automatic extensions while they wait for some of their tax documents. Additionally, the IRS will better be able to cross reference source documents on a taxpayer’s return when source documents have been filed earlier.

IMPORTANT: the IRS recently eliminated the automatic 30-day extension of time to file W-2 and 1099 forms. Previously, business filers could obtain an automatic 30-day extension by submitting Form 8809 to the IRS on or before January 31. Filers could also request an additional 30-day extension, pushing their e-file deadline to the end of May. This is no longer the case–automatic extensions will no longer be available when filing W-2 and 1099 forms for 2016.