Episode 24: Treasury Department Seeks Public Input on Easing E-Delivery Rules

This week on Information Return Intelligence, Jason Dinesen breaks down a developing story from the Treasury Department and IRS that could significantly impact how organizations deliver 1099s—and other information returns—to recipients.

The Treasury has issued proposed regulations to simplify electronic delivery (eDelivery) for Form 1099-DA (digital assets), while the IRS is simultaneously requesting public comments on expanding those changes to other forms, including Form 1099-B—and potentially all 1099s.

But here’s the bigger issue:
Most organizations don’t realize that emailing a PDF of a 1099 isn’t automatically compliant.

Jason walks through:

What “eDelivery” actually means under current IRS regulations
The often-overlooked consent requirements
Why the rules are considered “draconian”
What changes may be coming—and why they matter even if you don’t issue 1099-DA or 1099-B

📅 Public comments are open until May 23—this could be the beginning of major changes to how information returns are delivered.

👉 Next week: A deeper dive into the actual compliance requirements and what organizations should (and shouldn’t) be doing today.

Sponsored by IOFM (Institute of Finance & Management)
Learn more: https://www.iofm.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This week on Information Return Intelligence, the Treasury Department is seeking public comment on changes or potential changes to e-delivery of information returns to recipients. What's that, you might ask? Well, we'll explain all of that on today's episode. And welcome to Information Return Intelligence, sponsored by IOFM, the Institute of Finance and Management. My name is Jason Dinison. This is a fast-moving weekly podcast where we talk about all things related to 1099s, W9s, 1042s, anything falling under the heading of an information return. So this week we want to talk about e-delivery to recipients. That means providing 1099s, also W-2s. This discussion applies to W-2s as well, providing information forms electronically to the recipient. So we've talked a lot about e-filing with the IRS. We talk about that all the time at Iris and FIRE and so forth. We haven't talked much about the hoops that you're supposed to jump through when providing forms electronically to the recipient. Next week we'll go even deeper into this. This includes, though, things like providing a 1099 in PDF format by email. Now, you may have never heard of this, and you know it is a legitimate question to ask how many organizations are actually jumping through these hoops. That's a different story. The point is the hoops do exist, and I will tell you that there are many places out there that care very deeply about what these regulations say and wanting to make sure that they meet the regulations. So let's get into this. First, the latest breaking news, I guess, is that the Treasury Department recently released proposed regulations that will ease those rules, those hoops, and make it easier for issuers of one form only, 1099 DA, which is for digital asset reporting. It'll make it easier for issuers of that form to issue it electronically to recipients. Now, what are we talking about here? Many of you are probably not issuing Form 1099 DA because that relates to digital assets, and it would be something that, like, a brokerage involved in things like cryptocurrency would be issuing this form. There is to stick with me here because there's a piece, though, that applies to everybody listening to this podcast. So you have these proposed regulations to make it easier to e-deliver Form 1099 DA. At the same time, the IRS released a notice 2026-4 seeking public comment on changes to electronic delivery of Form 1099 B, B is in boy, making it easier to e-deliver that form as well. That's another one that you're probably not issuing because it's more of a brokerage or investment platform thing relating to the sale of securities, which means like stock sales. Now, there's one thing that the Treasury Department has said on all of this that applies to everybody, and that is that they are seeking public comment on possibly changing the draconian electronic delivery rules for all types of 1099s. Now that's not official, they're just seeking public comment, and the comment deadline is May 23rd. And what will they do with that? Those public comments. Well, they'll take them under advisement, and at some point, maybe they'll change the regulations relating to e-delivery of 1099s. Now we'll talk after the break about what do we mean with this whole all the hoops that you have to jump through. But first, a word from our sponsor, IOFM, the Institute of Finance and Management. Check them out at IOFM.com. If you work in accounts payable, accounts receivable, finance, you're just an interested party in all of these things. IOFM is the place for you. And you must be interested in those things if you're listening to this podcast. Become a member of IOFM and join some 10,000 other people who are also members of IOFM. You get access to webinars, some of which are taught by me. You get access to the big master guide to Form 1099 reporting, which I edit. You get access to the Ask the Expert feature where you can submit questions to me, and I'll answer them. IOFM also publishes various studies and white papers, not just with information returns, also with other things and accounts payable, invoicing and pricing and cash management and all of those things that a finance department cares about in an organization. Check them out at Iofm.com. And now back to the show. So just to wrap things up here, we'll talk more about this next week. But what are we getting at here? We've referenced this multiple times, the hoops you have to jump through, and the proposed regulations to make it easier on issuers of Form 1099 DA. And the IRS looking at making it easier for Form 1099 B issuers to do electronic delivery of these forms of 1099 DA and 1099 B. And they're seeking public comment on e-delivery as it relates to any type of information form. What do we mean? Well, the regulations lay out highly specific rules that you're supposed to meet if you intend to provide an information form to someone in a format other than paper. That's why I said at the very beginning, it would include something that seems as simple as emailing a PDF. You're supposed to meet the consent requirement, which has highly specific and detailed language that's supposed to be in the consent. And then there's the format, posting, and notification rules, which also have to be met. Now, if you're a smaller organization, you might say, Well, I've always just emailed PDFs to my contractors, and nothing has ever happened to me. And I believe you when you say that. And we'll go deeper into it in next week's episode. Thanks for joining us on Information Return Intelligence. I'm Jason Dynason. This episode, as always, is sponsored by IOFM. Join us again next week.