The IRS has proposed changes to electronically filing requirements that will lower the thresholds for W-2 and 1099 tax forms based on a recent regulation they proposed in the Federal Register. There have been several prior changes in the requirements since the 1980 when the IRS first began requiring employers to submit various 'informational returns' electronically all in an attempt to mandate that more and more employers e-file those returns.
The newly proposed regulation would lower the threshold from 250 to 100 for informational returns required to be filed during calendar year 2022, and from 100 to 10 for informational returns required to be filed after 2022. In other words, essentially every employer would be required to e-file informational returns by 2022.
They are also proposing to expand the types of returns to be included in their 'informational returns' filing requirement as the IRS seeks ways to reduce the need for manually processing paper return.
The result will be a 'new requirement' for e-filing on countless numbers of very small businesses that in the past have simply printed their informational returns and mailed them to the IRS. They must now have accounting systems that either prepare the returns for e-filing or they must contract with an e-filing service that that can take their data, convert it to the e-filing format, and e-file the returns for a fee. Either way they will be out these additional costs of compliance.