IRS Issues Corrected 2013 Employer's Tax Guide and Form 1099-MISC Instructions

Author: Rena Pirsos, XpertHR Legal Editor

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has re-issued the 2013 Publication 15 (Circular E), Employer's Tax Guide, and the 2013 Instructions for Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income, with corrections.

Publication 15

Employers that downloaded Publication 15 before February 6, 2013, may wish to download the corrected version, which is available on XpertHR. On page 21, some of the amounts provided in the table titled "Amount to Add to Nonresident Alien Employee's Wages for Calculating Income Tax Withholding Only" have changed. These amounts have been rounded up or down to the nearest 10 cents. For example, the weekly amount that was previously shown as $42.31 was changed to $42.30. Note that the correct amounts (rounded) were included in Notice 1036, Early Release Copies of the 2013 Percentage Method Tables for Income Tax Withholding, which posted to IRS.gov on January 3, 2013.

Instructions for Form 1099-MISC

Employers that downloaded the 2013 Instructions for Form 1099-MISC before February 15, 2013, should note the following changes:

The instructions for Box 11, Foreign Tax Paid, have been corrected to state "Enter the foreign tax paid on payments reported on Form 1099-MISC. Report this amount in U.S. dollars."
The instructions for Box 12, Foreign Country or U.S. Possession, have been changed to state "Enter the name of the foreign country or U.S. possession for which the foreign tax was paid and reported in Box 11."

The corrected instructions are available on XpertHR.