I'm the sole proprietor of my small business and do not have an EIN, but I'm not being allowed to file without providing an EIN for form 1099-NEC. How to proceed?

When you enter the 1099-NEC, you need to enter the information exactly as it is on the form. The issuer has an EIN. The IRS needs to know who is reporting the income. It is located in the box that says Payer's TIN.

The issue is that I don't think I even need to be filling out a 1099-NEC. I'm the sole proprietor and I have no employees. I've never paid anyone in relation to my small business. In the Federal Taxes section of this process I selected "no EIN." But when I go to file my taxes, TurboTax tells me there is a detail I need to review and takes me to form 1099-NEC. The line it wants me to fill in has "Payer's EIN _____ or SSN _____" but I am unable to type into the SSN section. Without specifically filling in the EIN, I am unable to e-file my federal taxes. But I do not have, nor have ever had, an EIN.

Form 1099-NEC can be used to report income to you for your Schedule C business (instead of Form 1099-MISC).  If you did not enter any income reported on Form 1099-NEC, then there may be a blank form that got brought over from your previous year's return.  

Try using the following steps to delete any unused Form 1099-NEC that you see:

• On the top row of the TurboTax online screen, click on Search (or for CD/downloaded TurboTax locate the search box in the upper right corner)
• This opens a box where you can type in “1099-NEC” and click the magnifying glass (or for CD/downloaded TurboTax, click Find)
• The search results will give you an option to “Jump to 1099-NEC”
• Click on the blue “Jump to 1099-NEC” link

This will bring you to the summary of all Form 1099-NEC that you have entered.  Click Delete or the trash can icon next to each one.

@ceciliacerrilla

Thank you! This solved my issue.