Year-end tax forms

Year-end tax forms are documents used by individuals and businesses to report income, deductions, and other financial information to the IRS and state tax authorities. The specific forms you need depend on your income sources and business structure.

Common Forms for Individuals

• Form 1040: This is the standard U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Most people use this form to report their total income, calculate their tax liability, and determine if they owe taxes or are due a refund.
• W-2: Your employer provides this form, which shows the wages you earned and the amount of federal, state, and local taxes withheld from your paychecks. You'll need this to fill out your Form 1040.
• Form 1099 Series: These forms report various types of non-employee income. For example, Form 1099-NEC is for non-employee compensation (like for freelancers or independent contractors), Form 1099-INT is for interest income from a bank, and Form 1099-DIV is for dividend income from investments.
• Schedule C: This is an attachment to Form 1040 for sole proprietors and single-member LLCs. It's where you report your business's profits and losses, as well as business expenses.

Common Forms for Businesses

The tax forms a business files depend on its legal structure.

• Form 1120: C-corporations use this form to report their income, deductions, and tax liability. A C-corp is taxed separately from its owners.
• Form 1120-S: S-corporations use this form. S-corps are "pass-through" entities, meaning the business's profits and losses are passed through to the owners' personal tax returns to be taxed at the individual level.
• Form 1065: This form is for partnerships. Like S-corps, partnerships are pass-through entities, and this form reports the business's income and expenses. Each partner then receives a Schedule K-1 that shows their share of the income, which they report on their individual Form 1040.
• Forms 940 & 941: These are employer-related forms. Form 941 is filed quarterly to report income taxes, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax withheld from employee pay. Form 940 is the annual return for the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA).