I do not have either an EIN or SS# for a contractor I need to submit a 1099, quickbooks is not letting me complete the 1099 and inputting zero's did not work.

Hi there, @charterboatrewin.

Thanks for dropping by the Community. I'm here to share some information about filing 1099 in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

QBO requires EIN when filing 1099 for contractors. If you don't have a copy of their EIN, I highly suggest reaching out to your contractors or have them contact the IRS.

Just in case, you can check out these articles for more information about the Form 10990-MISC:

• About Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income.
• Prepare and file 1099s.
• Print and mail 1099s in QuickBooks Online.

That should answer your concern for today. Should you have any follow-up questions, please let me know in the comment section. Take care and have a good one.

Yes we have contacted the contractor without success, necessitating our decision to submit the 1099 without the SS#. I will forego using Quickbooks I guess. Thanks

Welcome back to the Online Community, charterboatrewin.

I appreciate you letting us know the result after contacting your contractor. I want to be sure you’re pointed in the right direction about submitting the 1099 forms.

You can temporarily enter a dummy EIN so you can continue preparing your 1099s. If you’re going to e-file the forms, please note that QBO will not allow you to continue with the submission if the data is incomplete.

However, you can print and manually submit the 1099s. I also suggest contacting the IRS about the issue, so you’ll be properly guided.

If you have any concerns while working in QBO, leave me a comment. I’ll be happy to lend a helping hand. Wishing you the best.

I was not able to print the 1099 in Quickbooks. There was no apparent work around for not having all the required elements. I was able to put in a dummy social security number but then in the print stage, I could not edit to remove it. Thanks for your input.

Hello there, charterboatrewin.

Thanks for letting us know what happen. I'm here to make sure you are taken care of.

You can't use QuickBooks to electronically file 1099's without Social Security Number and EIN. However, you can print it and manually submit the form to the IRS.

Since you don't have an EIN or SSN for the 1099, you must request these numbers to your contractor. The request should state that the identifying number is required to be furnished under authority of law. 

For more information you can visit this article: Filing Forms W-2 and 1042-S Without Payee TIN's.

If there's anything else I can further assist, please drop me a reply below and I'll get back to you.

Dear QBO team, it really sounds like you are not "getting" question.

The vendor has been contacted and asked for SSN or tax ID.

Yet,the vendor refuses to cooperate and will not supply and EIN or TaxID. 

QBO refuses to print without one. 

The dummy id of 000-00-000 does not work, so what dummy ID should be used? 

How do you get QBO to print?

Hello skiyrround,

Why would be the vendor is hesitant to provide the SSN or EIN? This is important for you to complete the 1099 form.

Meanwhile, SSN and EIN consist of 9 digits. Here are the formats:

• SSN - XXX-XX-XXXX
• EIN - XX-XXXXXXX

On the other hand, using a dummy ID such as 000-00-0000 or 111-11-1111 (SSN) and 00-0000000 or 11-1111111 (EIN) won't work. I'd recommend creating a different ID number combination.

After that, we should be able to save and print the 1099 forms. The articles about printing the 1099s are already provided by FritzF.

You can get back to us if you have additional queries.

Hello Quickbooks, your team does not know IRS guidelines it seems.   The IRS Website says you can leave the contractor's EIN Blank if they did not furnish it.

You are causing a lot of stress and I will discontinue using quickbooks due to this stress.

Hi there, @ModernizedProperties.

I can see the importance and convenience of being able to print a 1099 form without an EIN/SSN from QuickBooks Online. However, the system doesn't allow this functionality at this time, as it requires complete information on the form.

For now, to file your 1099s, you can enter the details on the forms and send them manually. As we work hard to provide you better service, I'll do my part and personally submit this feedback to our developers, so they can assess the preference and put it under consideration.

I like you to know that your voice matters to us. That said, I encourage you visiting our QuickBooks Online Blog to stay current with our news and updates, including product road-maps. 

You've got me here to assist you if there's anything else you need. I'll make sure you're taken care of. Thanks for coming and have a good one.

+1 for that request to print 1099 without having an EIN/SSN.

Dear Quickbooks,

We absolutely understand the importance of getting EIN/SSN from a vendor to complete this process. But there are vendors/contractors that would not furnish their ID, for whatever excuses they want to come up with (mostly to avoid reporting their income!). Sure, we should have taken care of that before making any payments. But sometimes, this is beyond our control and no amount of coercion from you or from us is going to change that.

IRS guidelines seem to provide way out for us. We are supposed to print the 1099 without the Tax ID and still report it with as much information about that contractor as we can collect. And then include that in the 1096 summary. Also, we need to show enough evidence on our side to show the attempts to collect the Tax ID. Further, IRS may penalize these offending contractors.

Here is what I request from QB.

1) Ideally, work with IRS and figure out a built-in solution to submit 1099's for offending contractors and report it all electronically. 

2) If not, then at-least allow us to print 1099's without SSN/EIN so that we can complete this process manually.

3) If even that's not feasible, provide us sufficient guidance in your help-section to let us get past this obstacle (eg. Should we print a 1099 with fake Tax ID and then blot it out on the print-out? What is a good fake ID to choose? etc)

Thanks!

I hear you and appreciate the feedback, @0007jb.

Let me take note of your input and send it to the appropriate department and team members for consideration on the next updates. 

While we look into this and find a permanent solution to get around the blank SSN/EIN, I recommend using the workaround provided by my colleague above. Print a copy and manually submit the form to the IRS.

If you need assistance performing the given solution, I recommend reaching out to our Customer Care Team for now. They can help send the contractor’s 1099 successfully. 

Here's how to contact support:

1. Go to the Help menu.
2. Click Contact us.
3. Enter a brief description of your concern.
4. Hit Let's talk.
5. Scroll down and click either Start messaging or Get a callback.

Know that I'm always here to help if you need anything else. Have a good one!

I was just perusing these threads for edification and noticed this comment.

Did you really just ask an already lost and disgruntled (because of your team) taxpayer "Why would the vendor is hesitant to provide the SSN or EIN?". You then proceeded to share information that they already had knowledge of. 

I only wish I could've kept a job after doing something even remotely this ignorant. I wonder- how did you get hired? Mind-boggling.

As an independent bookkeeper, I used to run into this quite often.  Now I tell all my clients that I will not pay any vendor until they submit a W9.  In the past I spent way too much time and energy in January trying to get the EIN's from those consultants who didn't want their income reported!  Thanks for letting everyone know about filing the 1099 without EIN.  Let the IRS find them.