Academy/Taxes, Audits & Financial Compliance
1099 reporting
The dollar threshold, the form you collect first, and what happens if a vendor never sends it back.
If your HOA pays a contractor, vendor, or service provider $2,000 or more in a year, you generally must file an information return, usually Form 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC, reporting that payment to the IRS and the recipient. Collect a completed Form W-9 before the first payment so you have the correct name and taxpayer ID on file.
Who gets a 1099, and how much triggers it
Pay a landscaper, a management company, an attorney, or any non-corporate contractor $2,000 or more in a calendar year, and your association generally owes that payer a 1099, usually Form 1099-NEC for services. Some specific payment categories still use a lower $600 threshold under separate Code sections, so check the current-year IRS instructions rather than assuming one number covers every payment.
"For tax years beginning after 2025, the minimum threshold amount for reporting certain payments required to be reported on certain information returns and/or perform backup withholding on those payments increased to $2,000 and will be adjusted for inflation beginning in calendar year 2027."
Source: Publication 1099, General Instructions for Certain Information Returns, IRS
Collect the W-9 before you cut the first check
A Form W-9, Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification, gives you the payee's legal name and taxpayer ID, the two things a correct 1099 requires. Request it when you sign the contract or send the first payment, not in January while you're assembling the year's forms. By then, the landscaper who did one job in March may not answer emails.
No valid W-9? You must withhold 24 percent
If a payee never returns a W-9, or the IRS notifies you that the taxpayer ID they gave you is wrong, the payer must withhold 24% from that payee's reportable payments. This is called backup withholding. You still report the payment on the 1099, but you also file Form 945, Annual Return of Withheld Federal Income Tax, to remit what was withheld. Chasing the W-9 up front is cheaper than the alternative: easier to get a signature than to explain a surprise 24% holdback to a vendor mid-contract.
Filing ten or more returns of any kind? E-file all of them
The IRS counts every information return your association files in a year toward one combined total, not one count per form type. File six 1099-NECs and five 1099-INTs and that's eleven returns total, which means all eleven must be e-filed, not just whichever type individually crosses ten. Paper filing stays available only if your combined count for the year stays under ten.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
Your HOA pays a landscaping contractor $2,400 during the year. The contractor never returned a W-9. What must the board do?
Your association filed six 1099-NEC forms and five 1099-INT forms this year, eleven returns total. What's the filing rule?
A new landscaping vendor starts work in January. When should the board collect Form W-9?
Related elsewhere in the Academy
Taxes, Audits & Financial Compliance
Next, learn how to build a clean W-9 collection habit before the association ever cuts a check.
The $2,000 threshold applies to most reportable payments for tax years beginning after 2025, but some payment categories keep a separate, lower threshold, and the figure itself adjusts for inflation starting in 2027. Confirm the current-year threshold and correct form with your CPA or the current IRS instructions before assuming last year's numbers still apply.