Don’t Forget Those Nominee 1099s

For tax purposes, if you receive income in your name that actually belongs to someone else, you are also a nominee. Being a nominee means that you must file a 1099 form with the IRS appropriate to the type of income you received and give a copy of the 1099 to the actual owner of the income. However, if the other person is your spouse, no 1099 filing is required.

One of the most commonly encountered nominee situations is having a joint bank account or brokerage account with someone other than your spouse and all of the income from those accounts being reported under your SS number. You will need to provide the IRS and your joint account owner with a 1099 reporting the co-owner’s share of the income under his or her SS number. Then, when you file your return, you need to show all of the income but back out the co-owner’s share as “nominee amount.”

The type of 1099 to file depends upon the type of income: 1099-INT for interest, 1099-DIV for dividends, and 1099-B for the proceeds from selling stocks and bonds.

Forms 1099-INT and 1099-DIV issued by you as a nominee are supposed to be provided to the recipients by January 31, while the deadline for providing forms 1099-B to the other owner(s) is February 15. In order to avoid penalties, copies of the 1099s need to be sent to the IRS by February 28. The 1099s must be submitted on magnetic media or on optically scannable forms (OCR forms). This firm prepares 1099s in OCR format for submission to the IRS along with the required 1096 transmittal form. This service provides recipient and file copies for your records.

If you have questions about filing 1099s as a nominee, please call our office.