From the Desk of Peter Goodrich, Tax Staff
With another calendar tax year coming to a close, it is important to bring to your attention some of the significant changes that have been made regarding the filing compliance of W-2’s and W-3’s, and 1099’s and 1096’s due to a tax provision enacted in late 2015 known as the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 or the PATH Act.
Previously, government copies of forms W-3, W-2, 1096 and 1099-MISC (specifically non-employee compensation Box 7) have been due either February 28th or March 31st depending on whether they were paper or electronically filed respectively while the recipient copies of these forms were and are still due January 31st. It is important to mention that the following deadline changes only pertain to the reporting of employee (W-2) and non-employee (1099-MISC Box 7) compensation. For the 2016 tax year and onward, government copies of these forms are now also due January 31st. This essentially eliminates the lag time between January 31st, February 28th and March 31st which allowed for payer and payee communication to correct any erroneous information that would have otherwise been reported to the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service. Consequently, this decrease of time will increase the number of late filers and past due date corrections which are subject to penalties which have been further increased this year. Extensions of the January 31st deadline for Forms W-2 and 1099-MISC (non-employee compensation) have also been modified. Form W-2 now only has a 30-day non-automatic one time extension while Form 1099-MISC still has its automatic 30-day extension and potential additional non-automatic 30-day extension. Please note that it will be a difficult task to obtain the 30-day non-automatic extensions from the government so you cannot rely on such additional time.
In conclusion, it is imperative that you are aware of this time contraction and that you start compiling demographic information (i.e. names and current addresses) as soon as possible to optimize the remaining time between now and January 31st to get your W-2s and 1099-MISC filings in order. For general topic related questions or assistance with obtaining the 30-day automatic extension for your non-employee compensation 1099-MISC filings, please contact Rosenfield & Co. PLLC at (407) 849-6400; the deadline to file the 30-day automatic extensions for the 1099-MISC (non-employee compensation) is January 31, 2017.
