1099-NEC wants Payer EIN, but I provided TIN (which the form says is fine!)

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@ yelvischesley 

wrote:

I got a 1099-NEC from my side gig as a musician. My drummer manages the books and the form includes his TIN. Turbo tax is asking me for his EIN, but I can see on the form they are telling me to fill out that it will accept either an EIN or an SSN. Any way around this?

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TIN is a generic term that includes SSN, EIN, ITIN, etc.  On a generic 1099-NEC there is a box that shows "Payer's TIN".   If the Payer has an EIN for their business purposes, they would enter an EIN there.  If the Payer uses SSN for their business purpose, they would have entered an SSN there.    If you can't tell from the format example below what your Payer has, you can ask the Payer/drummer if it is an SSN or EIN.

TurboTax should ask you to choose a format in order for the field requirements to change from EIN to SSN or vice versa.

EIN usually has this format: ##-#######

SSN usually has this format:  ###-##-####

Right, during the initial entry that's what they asked, and I put in the SSN (###-##-####). But now they are doing their error check and telling me I need an EIN and won't let me e-file without one. 

Please share the exact message you are seeing during the error check so that someone can try to help.  

@yelvischesley 

Thanks @AnnetteB6 .  We were typing at the same time. 😁   I saw this suggestion provided by TurboTax Expert @DawnC in another thread:

"Enter the 9 numbers only - do not enter any dashes.   You choose how the number is formatted, either xx-xxxxxxx OR xxx-xx-xxxx, and enter only the 9 numeric digits, no hyphens, dashes, or spaces.    Enter the digits, then scroll down and hit Continue."

So @yelvischesley  choose the format then enter the 9 numbers contiguously without any formatting at all, and let TurboTax do all the work of formatting.

When entering the 1099 NEC, it asks if the payers # is in SSN or EIN form, and I said SSN form and entered that. And now it's asking for the EIN but I don't have one.

Ah, figured it out. Turbotax was carrying a $0 in Federal Tax withheld, which it counted as an entry and requires an EIN. I deleted the "0" and it worked.

There’s a field that says federal holding amount, make sure the field is empty, no 0s