1099 and W-2 for Same Employee

[Christine Roberts]

An employee provides outside services to his or her employer as an independent contractor. Presuming the provision of such services meets the definition of an independent contractor relationship, and not that of a common law employee, is there any prohibition on the employer issuing a 1099 and a W-2 to the same individual for any given year?

I understand that this might be an audit trigger, but am trying to confirm whether there is an outright prohibition on this form of reporting.

[Michael Devault]

There is no prohibition against it. Last year, we had reason to do the same thing: An employee had "non-employee" compensation in the form of commissions. We checked with two accountants who both said it's OK to issue a W2 and a 1099.

Hope this helps.

[GBurns]

There should be no problem as long as there was a clear delineation between both functions. It is not a very unusual situation it happens quite often.