How to report 1099 income on taxes when companies didn't send 1099 forms?

You definitely need to report all your income whether you received a 1099 or not, so you're on the right track! The IRS actually gets copies of any 1099s issued to you, so they'll know about the ones you received. For the income without 1099s, you should still report it all on your Schedule C. Both TurboTax and FreeTaxUSA have options for reporting "income not reported on a 1099" or similar wording. You don't technically need to list each client individually if you didn't receive a 1099 from them. However, I would recommend keeping your detailed spreadsheet records for at least 7 years in case of an audit. The IRS might ask questions if there's a significant amount of income without corresponding 1099s, but as long as you can show your records, you'll be fine. Also, remember that businesses are only required to issue 1099s if they paid you $600 or more during the tax year, so some of your clients might not be legally required to send you one.

After struggling with a similar situation last year (had about 25 clients but only received 14 1099s), I found this amazing tool called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that saved me so much time. It automatically extracts all the important info from the 1099s you do have, but the best part is it has a special section for tracking income without 1099s. I just uploaded my spreadsheets and it organized everything perfectly for both the documented and undocumented income. The IRS did ask me some questions later because of the large amount of non-1099 income, but taxr.ai had already organized all my documentation so perfectly that it was super easy to respond.

I was super skeptical about taxr.ai when I first read about it here, especially with my messy combination of payment records. But after getting frustrated with trying to organize everything myself, I decided to give it a shot. It was actually amazing how it handled my chaotic documentation. I uploaded all my PayPal receipts, bank statements, and the few 1099s I had, and it organized everything perfectly. Even extracted client information from email confirmations! When I filed my taxes, I felt confident about reporting all my income, even the parts without official 1099s. Definitely worth checking out if you're dealing with lots of different income sources and incomplete documentation.

Speaking from experience, if you have missing 1099s and need to contact those companies, good luck getting through to their accounting departments! I spent WEEKS trying to reach people for my missing forms. I finally found this service called Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) that actually got me through to actual humans at these companies. Basically it navigates all those awful phone trees and waits on hold for you, then calls you when it gets a real person. Check out how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I was able to get 4 of my missing 1099s by using this to contact the companies directly. Saved me tons of time and frustration trying to track down those forms. For the ones I still couldn't get, I just reported the income like others suggested here.

I have to admit I was completely wrong about Claimyr. After complaining here, I was still struggling to get through to two companies that owed me 1099s from last year, so I reluctantly tried it. It actually worked exactly as described. I put in the company phone numbers, and about 45 minutes later (while I was at the gym not thinking about it), I got a call connecting me directly to the accounting department of one company. Got my 1099 issue resolved in 5 minutes of actual conversation. The next day, same thing happened with the second company. Honestly wish I'd known about this earlier instead of spending days getting nowhere with these companies. Sometimes it's worth admitting when you're wrong!

Just want to add that if you're using TurboTax, there's a specific way to handle this. I had a similar situation last year. When you get to the income section, choose self-employment/1099-NEC income. Even if you don't have the actual forms for all income, enter the ones you have first. Then, there's an option to "Enter income not reported on tax forms" - use this for your other income. It won't ask for business info for those entries. Keep good records though - names, addresses, amounts paid, dates, etc. just in case.

One thing nobody mentioned - make sure you're still categorizing your expenses properly across all income sources! I made the mistake of just lumping all my income together one year and then tried to deduct expenses against it, and it got messy during an audit. Even if you're reporting some income without the 1099s, still track which expenses go with which income streams. It'll make your life way easier if you ever get questioned.