Copy B: the second January deadline, and the one that is easier to miss

There are two obligations in January, not one. You file the return with the IRS, and you furnish a statement (Copy B) to the person the return is about. They are separate duties, they carry separate penalties, and the IRS charges for each independently: a penalty applies for each information return you did not file correctly or on time, and for each payee statement you did not provide correctly and on time.

For tax year 2026 both dates land on Monday, February 1, 2027, because the statutory January 31 is a Sunday and the next-business-day rule moves it.

When Copy B is due

1099-NEC

January 31, and therefore Monday, February 1, 2027 for tax year 2026.

1099-MISC, in general

January 31, and therefore Monday, February 1, 2027.

1099-K

January 31, and therefore Monday, February 1, 2027.

1099-MISC reporting amounts in boxes 8 or 10

February 15 of the year following the calendar year. February 15, 2027 is Washington's Birthday, a legal holiday in the District of Columbia, so Tuesday, February 16, 2027.

Furnishing does not wait for the IRS

This is the operational point that catches firms in a bad week. A transmission rejected on January 30 does not suspend the furnishing duty. The statement you owe the recipient is a copy of what is or will be filed (it is not a receipt for an accepted filing), and the recipient's clock is not the IRS's clock.

So a rejection late in January is two problems on two timelines: fix and refile, and furnish anyway. This product treats them that way deliberately: a form can be furnished before it is accepted, and the only thing that blocks furnishing is a voided form, because then there is nothing to furnish.

Electronic delivery is allowed, and it has conditions

You may furnish Copy B electronically, but only to a recipient who has consented, and the consent has to be obtained in a particular way. Publication 1179 section 4.6.2 requires seven statements to be put in front of the recipient before the consent is given, not alongside the statement you later send them.

The seven cover: that they do not have to agree; what they are agreeing to and for how long; that they can still get a paper copy; how to withdraw consent; when electronic statements stop; how to keep their contact details current; and what hardware and software they need, and how long the statement stays available.

Section 4.6.3 then governs the delivery itself. The statement must be posted on or before the January 31 due date on a website accessible to the recipient through October 15, and the recipient must be informed, electronically or by mail, of the posting and how to access and print the statement. An emailed attachment on its own does not satisfy that: posting and notification are both required.

What a correct Copy B looks like

• The recipient's TIN is truncated. Publication 1179 permits it, and the product does it by default.
• The payer's TIN is not truncated. The truncation regulation, 26 CFR 301.6109-4(b)(2), permits truncation only of the payee's own identifying number. So when the payer is an individual, their SSN prints in full, on paper and on the electronic copy alike. That is not a bug; it is the rule, and it is worth knowing before a sole-proprietor client asks.
• The statement is a copy of what is or will be filed: the same figures, whether or not the IRS has acknowledged the transmission yet.
• Consent, where delivery is electronic, is on record with a version: a consent given against one set of disclosures cannot be read as consent to a later, different set.

The correction you did not expect to owe

When a return is corrected, the corrected statement has to be furnished again. The furnishing penalty does not care that the earlier statement was correct when it went out. The obligation attaches to the record as corrected. In this product a correction is a new record rather than an edit, and it starts with no furnishing date on it, which is simply true of it. That is as true of a 1099-MISC as of a 1099-NEC: both are filed, furnished and corrected the same way here.

That is one reason corrections are not billed here. A correction that costs money is a correction someone delays.

If you only change one thing this season

Separate the two duties on your January checklist and give them separate owners. Most firms track transmissions, because acknowledgements arrive and demand attention. Nothing arrives to remind you that four recipients never got a statement, which is precisely why that is the half that gets missed.