1099 reporting requirement repealed

Uncle Sam won’t be worsening your paperwork burden, now that the U.S. Senate has repealed a regulation that would have required physician offices and other small businesses to report vendor payments of more than $600 a year to the Internal Revenue Service.

The regulation, which was part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed last year, was “unnecessary and burdensome,” according to American Medical Association (AMA) President Cecil B. Wilson.

"It is estimated that paperwork already takes up as much as a third of a physician's workday-time that could be better spent with patients-and this provision would only increase that burden," Wilson said. The AMA was one of many professional organizations and business groups to criticize the reporting requirement. The repeal represents the first tweak of the healthcare reform legislation, which is also being challenged in federal court and by conservatives in Congress.

The requirement would have taken effect in 2012, and was intended to help generate revenue to cover the costs of the healthcare reform bill by identifying businesses that fail to report income on tax filings. It would have raised an estimated $17 billion in new taxes.