Form W-9
In accounting, form W-9 means the IRS form a US payee gives a payer to certify its name, tax classification and taxpayer identification number — collected before the first payment, because it drives 1099 reporting and backup withholding.
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- Lexicon
- Defined in
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- Nearby
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Authority
This definition follows IRS — About Form W-9.
Every citation in this system, with the text we read and the date we checked it, is in US GAAP and where these rules come from.
For founders
The same idea written for a founder: what it costs a startup that ignores it, and what to do in a real month.
- W-9s and backup withholding: a vendor onboarding guideWhen to ask for a W-9, how IRS TIN matching works, and what happens when a vendor won’t give you one: 24% backup withholding, owed by you.
- Contractor or employee? Classification for startupsContractor or employee depends on control, not the contract. The IRS test, state rules, 1099s, payroll registration and the cost of getting it wrong.
What it is not called
Each of these is a real word for a different thing. Using it here is what makes a product read as though it was built by someone who has not done the work.
- tax form unqualified
Nearby in the catalog
No component names this concept outright. These are the ones in its part of the system, which is a weaker claim — but a component nothing links to is a component nobody finds.
Terms this one depends on
- Backup withholdingFederal income tax a payer must withhold at 24% from reportable payments — contractor fees, interest, dividends, card settlements — when the payee has not given a correct TIN or the IRS has notified the payer to withhold. Deposited and reported on Form 945
- PayeeThe party receiving a payment
- PayerThe party paying us
Also in Tax
Defined in Lexicon. This page is generated from that document, so the two cannot disagree.