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Hosts in the U.S. may have been getting 1099s in prior years because of various individual state thresholds that were lower than the federal threshold.
The federal lower threshold, from $20,000 and 200 transactions to $600 with any transaction number, goes into effect for transactions settled after December 31. 2021.
But even stranger is hosts reporting that they are over the Fed threshold and still not getting 1099s (and not having a TIN on file with Airbnb). Airbnb must be getting fined for that, right?
You know what’s nuts??? I have never had a single transaction over $600…yet here we are…
Even if you only have $10 transactions, if you have 60 of them then the new regulation applies - anything adding up to $600 or more. It is better, it is easier and it will keep your taxes aligned for less worry.
Thank you for the additional info @JJD
Refers to the aggregate amount, $600 or more in total for the year.
Okay, for all you accountants…I’m on the AirBnB website page to input information and this is greek to me:
Exemption from FATCA reporting code (if any)
Exempt payee code (if any)
I expect N/A applies to us, but I don’t really know.
If you don’t know that you are exempt then you are not 
Good one. I should have googled:
The “Exempt payee code” space is for an entity that is a U.S. exempt . payee . The “Exemption from FATCA reporting code” space is for a payee that is exempt from reporting. required by the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
I was trying to save you from the trouble. But if you want to dive in:
I did and it shows in my profile as added 2018.
When I said “maybe not fraudulent” I meant that the email was not fraudulent (i.e. scam). It just seemed odd because I thought they had my SSN this entire time and they did. Of course, they didn’t send me one of these emails (yet, anyway) either, just that survey about the email, which felt a bit odd, but that’s Air for you.
Well, @Atlnative, I know the discussion has progressed beyond this (I missed your questions, I’m sorry). I had already provided my TIN back in 2018 so there was nothing else I need to do, that I am aware of anyway.
Me too! I just ran a report for 2 years and I was well over 20K for AirBnb bookings both years. I will fill out the taxpayer information, as much as I do not trust AirBnb not to screw it up somehow. I wonder if it is safer from a data standpoint to use my employer iD as opposed to my personal SS#? I hate giving that out.
RR
That is odd, particularly because you’re W-9 is already filled out. Yep, Air.
It would depend on how you file your taxes I think as to which one you should use. @dpfromva will surely know.
The new U.S. rule will probably cause a lot of additional 1099s to be issued for 2022 transactions for PayPal, Venmo, eBay, etc. transactions, all third party payers, regardless of whether they are business revenue or personal repayments. My understanding is that Venmo’s efforts to identify business income (and charge a fee for it) are in the early stages, vague and murky.
The 1099-K is an informational report that goes to you and the IRS. You do not have to report anything that is not income on your tax return, but be aware the IRS has this information, and, in the rare event you are audited, best to have some sort of documentation that demonstrates what is and isn’t business income.
A lot of folks doing pandemic clean out by selling household items on eBay were surprised and concerned to get 1099s. Typically in that case one is selling at a loss because the items have depreciated in value, and you get used prices for them, so not a business, and there is no income to declare. Conversely, no you cannot claim a business “loss” for those transactions unless you are actually in business as a reseller. See IRS publications for determining what criteria make your activities a business.
Not to panic if you haven’t kept the original receipt for the kitchen gadgets you sold on eBay,
but best to maintain some documentation identifying the items. You can request selling history by going into your account settings under Personal Information and scroll to the bottom. Under My eBay Data, you can request sold history up to two years back.
All income must be declared, including of course cash payments from your direct bookings, and all tax evasion (as opposed to legal tax avoidance), is wrong. Unfortunately, it’s much easier for the IRS to catch the “little guy” at tax cheating than, say, a bad actor real estate investor, due to the nature of the information that the IRS receives. The IRS gets W2s and 1099s from third parties for working stiffs. There is a relatively high level of scrutiny of the earned income and child care tax credits.
But if you are a bad actor in the real estate business, valuations for your sales and losses will be based on your bookkeeping, ostensibly backed by legit appraisals. You can set up additional companies to provide services and goods for your properties that are charged to expense, ostensibly at market rates. It is resource-intensive for the IRS to challenge those valuations and expense rates.
Thank you for awesome and clear breakdown!
The other side of this is that when we need to issue 1099s to workers we hire directly. That was already a threshold of $600 I believe. I’ve never understood why my electrician should technically get a 1099 from me at $600 but Airbnb wouldn’t issue one until after $20,000. And I’ve received 1099s from home health companies even if I only saw one patient for them but went over $600. If you have time, what is the difference there? Was it different only because of third-party payments with Airbnb?
1099-MISC nonemployee compensation (box 7), now reported on 1099-NEC, a form reinstituted by IRS in I think 2020, has had the $600 threshold for a long time. The 1099-K third party payer had a higher threshold until 2022 reporting.
We may be getting more than the $20k but we do not have 200+ transactions via PayPal therefor we get no 1099s from Airbnb or PayPal.
That will change in 2022.
You are confusing your income taxes with the always charged taxes the guest pays for their reservation. AirBnB have a making this whole thing much worse than it has to be by supplying their standard link to tax questions that o it goes to a very “uninformational” description of VAT and local / state taxes may need to be charged…
It’s either/or not both. If you get $20,000+ OR 200+ transactions, you should be getting 1099s form Airbnb.
Starting 2022 you will need to get one if you get $600+. The threshold is simply $600 starting next year. If Airbnb does not have your taxpayer information they will have to, by law, withhold 30% of your payouts.