Amended tax return due to late 1099
originally posted: 11/22/2006 reposted: 2/18/2011 This post has not been recently reviewed or revised by the author and may be out of date. If in doubt, please send a new question or ask for an update.
Q: My bank sent a corrected Form 1099 after I already filed my tax return. I may be due a small refund. Do I need to amend my tax return?
A: Unfortunately, this annoyance has become increasingly common in recent years as financial firms struggle with their corporate tax accounting and more Form 1099 filings are received too late after individual tax returns have been filed. If the change in your reported income is small then, no, don’t bother filing an amended return. If a significant refund or tax due then you should make the correction. Keep in mind that filing an amendment resets the amount of time the IRS has to audit your return, so do not act so quickly to amend a return that is a few years old. The IRS published guidelines about this topic that say if the error would be caught by computer matching then an amended return is not required. On the other hand, if you overpaid your taxes there is no assurance that the refund will be automatically processed.
Summary
More resources:
IRS Tax Tip