Starting in 2017 for tax year 2016, businesses are required to file W-2 and 1099-MISC by January 31. This is the same deadline as issuing W-2 and 1099-MISC to employees and independent contractors. Whether forms W-2 and 1099-MISC are filed physically or electronically, the same deadline applies.
All small business payroll should be aware of these new 2017 payroll tax filing deadlines.
| Form | Due /Term | Description |
|---|---|---|
| W-2 (Wage & Tax Statement) |
By January 31, 2017 Annual |
Issued to employees
Filed with Social Security Administration (SSA) |
| 1099-MISC Forms | By January 31, 2017 Annual |
Issued to independent contractor/ or vendors
Filed with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) |
Because of the new filing deadline, we expect that payroll tax filing will be more challenging in the 2017 tax season. All small business payrolls need to get ready and start payroll tax preparation earlier this year.
Paycheck Manager and our sister websites www.W2manager.com and www.1099manager.com provide convenient, dedicated tools for small businesses to create W-2/W-3 or 1099-MISC/1096 PDF forms at any time, as well as to edit, add or delete forms as needed in order to e-file before the deadline.
Why the change?
In the past, the deadline to issue W-2 to employees has always been the end of January, and the W-2 and W-3 forms are required to be filed to the SSA before the end of February. If the W-2 and W-3 information are filed electronically, the deadline is extended to the end of March.
However, because of the IRS does not receive the W-2 data from the SSA until late March, criminals have been filing fraudulent 1040 tax returns and the IRS could not verify the employee payroll information easily. Billions of dollars of tax refunds have been issued in recent years for these fraudulent tax returns.
Therefore, starting in 2017 for tax year 2016, employers are required to file W-2 and W-3 data to the SSA by the end of January, the same deadline for issuing W2s to employees.
The accelerated, new deadline also applies to 1099-MISC filings as well.