September 10, 2019Form 1099-NEC has been resurrected by the IRS after 36 years on the shelf. Non-employee compensation paid in 2020 will be reported on Form 1099-NEC instead of Form 1099-MISC.

New Non-Employee Compensation Reporting Coming for 2020

The 2020 Form 1099-NEC is due to the contractor and the IRS by January 31, 2021.

As you can guess, this change will help the IRS better target misclassified workers. If you need a brief summary of the employee versus independent contractor rules to send to a client, see the IRS’s fact sheet here.

If you think that your client has a problem with misclassified workers and that the 1099-NEC may alert the IRS, remember that the IRS continues to give some relief for penalties if the business voluntarily reclassifies its workers. See the details of the Voluntary Classification Settlement Program (VCSP) here.

The change may help us. We’ve all seen rent “stuck” in the wrong box on the Form 1099-MISC where it was identified as non-employee compensation. Reporting non-employee compensation on a separate form may help the issuer report more accurately.