[boomlinde]

> You're supposed to submit that form when you do your taxes, which is kind of dumb, because a copy of the 1099 was already sent to the IRS.

Isn't that just an escape hatch if you do have additional income to report? The tax office should present it as such. Here, the tax office gets that kind of report from a bank. If I agree that it's correct, all I have to do is sign a prefilled form digitally. Unless I've generated income elsewhere, doing the taxes as an employer literally takes less than 5 minutes.

[bluGill]

It isn't though, even though the irs has that information for most people we have to fill out tax forms as if the irs had nothing.

[boomlinde]

I mean practically, as in the only practical use of it is as an escape hatch for when your income isn't accurately reflected by the forms.