FRANKFORT, Ky. — Due to the pandemic’s unprecedented unemployment, tax form 1099-G is being delivered to more mailboxes than ever.
The total compensation listed in box #1 must be reported when filing taxes, but many unemployment claimants have reached out to FOCUS complaining that the figure is way too high. In other words, they didn’t receive unemployment payments that came even close to equaling what their 1099-G lists.
“That could be a substantial number,” Tim Riney of the Family Wealth Group in Louisville said.
He agrees with the Kentucky Labor Cabinet’s assertion that many might be confused and never realized that the $600 weekly federal payments they received through July as well as the three $300 payments from FEMA, to which the Commonwealth added another $100, are all part of the grand total which is all taxable.
Riney said some folks also might be confusing those CARES Act payments with the one-time $1,200 per person stimulus checks.
“The stimulus amounts and checks that we all received is not taxable,” he said.
Still, the Commonwealth is aware that many claimants did the math correctly on how much they received and it still doesn’t add up to their 1099-G.
“Please check it as soon as you get it so that we can give you the attention you need so that you can make all of your filing deadlines,” Amy Cubbage, the Governor’s Office General Counsel, said.
As of Thursday, Cubbage says they have received more than a thousand emails to kyou1099@ky.gov questioning the tax form which may require a corrected 1099-G.
But if that corrected 1099-G doesn’t arrive in a timely manner, the IRS wants taxpayers to still file on time, but advises them to only report what they actually received in unemployment compensation. More information can be found here.
Riney warns against delaying tax returns past April 15.
“Complete your return with what you expect to pay and pay that amount,” he said. “You can always file an extension and clean that up when that extension is due.”
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