Backup Withholding

  

Income tax withholding is money withheld from your income and paid to the government to be applied against your annual income tax bill. That's withholding, right?

So then what is backup withholding? Is it extra money withheld in case the other money withheld wasn't enough? Nope. If a taxpayer didn't provide the correct Tax Identification Number, or did not report dividend, interest, or patronage dividend income to the IRS, they may be subject to backup withholding. Things like rents, royalty payments, profits, commissions, fees, and other payment for work as an independent contractor may also trigger backup withholding.

"May be subject to" implies the taxpayer did it once, the IRS noticed it, and they requested a correction so the taxpayer is on double-secret probation.

FYI, a "patronage dividend" is essentially a refund issued to those who purchase goods or services from a cooperative. Example: Farmer's Co-op's are big in the midwest.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is the IRS?19 Views

00:00

Finance allah shmoop What is the i r s Well

00:07

i rest might be the three most hated letters in

00:10

the alphabet Well after d m v a pms and

00:13

well maybe std The i r s is the internal

00:17

revenue service Their internal i e inside the government they're

00:21

in charge of collecting revenue A k a They take

00:25

money from your pocket in the form of taxes and

00:28

they deliver it to uncle sam and they you know

00:31

service you and it doesn't feel good So yeah these

00:35

are the guys from the us treasury department who checked

00:38

to make sure you filled out your income tax forms

00:41

correctly and submitted the proper amount And if you screwed

00:45

up in any way they will let you know about

00:47

it and a half in the form of angry letters

00:49

Phone calls knocks on your front door rocks through your

00:52

back window Whatever it takes to get you to pay

00:54

your fair share of taxes Like why should you get

00:58

away with not paying when the jones has paid all

01:00

they owed Or the irs can do even worse and

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audit you with an audit he irs will request extensive

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and very specific information and records from you Paycheck deductions

01:12

all kinds of things You claim that you did that

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were deductible that may or may not have been forcing

01:17

you to spend hours upon hours at your public storage

01:20

unit digging through boxes you hoped and prayed you'd never

01:23

see again Well after the third solid week of having

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your financial history poked and prodded like you've had to

01:29

turn your head and cough you uh might actually be

01:32

ready and willing to trade in those three letters of 00:01:35.13 --> [endTime] irs for rough one of those stds instead

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