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Form 1099-MISC: Miscellaneous Information

tax form, United States

Written byNancy Ashburn

Fact-checked byThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Illustration of a decorative 1099-MISC tax form, featuring placeholder text and sample fields, with a green patterned background.

Use Form 1099-MISC to report certain types of income not reported on other Forms 1099.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

If you received payments that aren’t reported on other Forms 1099, you may receive Form 1099-MISC. Businesses and other organizations commonly use the form to report rent, royalties, prizes and awards, and several other types of income.

Depending on your situation, you may receive the form for medical or health care payments or certain kinds of legal settlements. Businesses and other organizations also use Form 1099-MISC to report payments to attorneys, health care providers, commercial fishers, and others.

Most residential landlords receive Form 1099-MISC only if they rent out their properties to businesses or other organizations rather than individuals.

Key boxes on Form 1099-MISC

Box 1: Rent payments you received. Depending on the nature of the rental activity, you may report this income on Schedule C or Schedule E.
Box 2: Royalties from sources such as oil, gas, mineral properties, copyrights, or patents.
Box 3: Other income, including prizes, awards, sweepstakes winnings, punitive damages, and other payments that don’t fit another reporting category.
Box 4: Federal income tax withheld from your payments.
Box 5: Your share of the proceeds from the catch if you worked as a member of a commercial fishing crew.
Box 6: Payments made to you for providing medical or health care services, which are generally reported as business income.
Box 10: Gross proceeds paid to an attorney in connection with legal services.
Box 13a: Cash tips reported to you. Use this amount, together with the occupation code in Box 13b, to determine whether you’re eligible for the qualified tip deduction.
Box 14: Qualified overtime compensation, which you may need when calculating the qualified overtime compensation deduction.

Using Form 1099-MISC

Use Form 1099-MISC, along with your other tax documents, when preparing your federal income tax return. Because the form reports many different types of payments, where you report the income depends on what the payment was for. Keep the form with your tax records even if you don’t owe additional tax.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Nancy Ashburn