The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) requires that listing brokers who pay a cooperative commission in excess of $600 to an individual who is not their employee must complete a Form 1099-MISC. Below is a brief description of this issue and links to the necessary forms.
IRS Requirements
The IRS requires individuals that:
- pay compensation of $600 or more to
- an individual who is not an employee
- for services provided
- during the course of the payor’s trade or business to complete Box 7- Nonemployee Compensation on Form 1099-MISC, give Copy B of the form to the individual who received the compensation and file Copy A with the IRS.
“Nonemployee compensation” includes fees, commissions, prizes, and awards, and so would include cooperative commissions and referral fees paid by real estate professionals because these payments are made during the course of their trade or business to non-employees.
These filing requirements exist even if the listing broker is not directly paying the cooperative commission to the other broker. So, if the cooperative commission is paid by the escrow agent to the other broker, the listing broker may still need to file a 1099-MISC. This is because the funds constituting the cooperative commission are drawn from the listing broker’s portion of the commission and so the payment is technically made by the listing broker.
This requirement only applies to payments made to individuals, and does not apply when the payments are made to corporations. Listing brokers should still make it part of their business practice to obtain a completed Form W-9 from anyone to whom it pays a commission, whether it be an individual or a corporation. Property owners do not need to complete a 1099-MISC for the commissions they pay to real estate professionals because this activity is not part of their trade or business.
Here is an example:
Joe Seller lists his home for sale with real estate broker Don Listbroker. Listbroker places the listing into a multiple listing service and offers a cooperative commission to any MLS participant who brings him a buyer that successfully purchases the property. A client of another broker’s salesperson, Julie Buyerep, made an offer to purchase Seller’s home. Seller accepts the offer, and the transaction closes. At closing, the escrow agent makes commission payments to both Listbroker and Buyerep’s principal broker, Don Broker. Here is who is required to report commissions to the IRS:
Listbroker has an obligation to report the commission payments made to Broker, even though Broker received the commission check from the escrow agent
Broker has an obligation to report the commission amounts that he pays to Buyerep
Neither Seller nor the buyer have any obligation to report the commissions that their real estate representatives received.
Reporting Deadlines and Other Information
Below are links to the IRS’s instructions for completing Form 1099-MISC and also the Form itself.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099msc.pdf
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1099msc.pdf
In order to complete the 1099-MISC, a taxpayer needs to obtain certain information from the recipient, such as a social security number or an employer identification number. Brokers should obtain this information by giving Form W-9 to every broker to whom it pays cooperative commissions (or causes to be paid) and request that the cooperating brokers return a completed Form W-9 to the taxpayer. This form will give the taxpayer sufficient information to complete the 1099-MISC and will also inform the taxpayer about whether the cooperating broker is an individual or a corporation.
Remember, if the cooperative commission is paid to a corporation, the taxpayer does not need to file a Form 1099-MISC. However, it is recommended that the taxpayer make it part of its risk management policies to obtain the W-9 from all cooperating brokers, in order to demonstrate that it verified the corporate status of the cooperative broker. If the cooperating broker refuses to return the W-9, the taxpayer can still verify the corporate status of the cooperating broker by checking its secretary of state’s website.
Below is a link to Form W-9 and the accompanying instructions.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf
Source: NAR
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