Rules for Form 1040

IRS Form 1040 is often called the "long form," because it is designed to account for every option in filing your federal income taxes. Unlike Form 1040EZ, which is a simplified version available to certain groups of taxpayers, the standard 1040 and its attachments can be complicated and time-consuming.

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You must use Form 1040, for example, if the following statements apply to you.

1. You received income from self-employments (business or farm income).
2. You received partnership income, S corporation income, or income from a trust or estate (e.g., Schedule K-1 income).
3. You owe household employment taxes.
4. You received $20 or more in tips in any one month and did not report the full amount to your employer.
5. You received insurance policy dividends that exceeded the total of all net premiums you paid for the contract.
6. You received a distribution from a foreign trust.
7. You can exclude any foreign earned income; income from Puerto Rico (if you were a resident of Puerto Rico); and income from American Samoa (if you were a resident of American Samoa for all of 2012).
8. You have an alternative minimum tax adjustment on stock you acquired from exercising an incentive stock option.
9. You owe excise tax on insider stock compensation from an expatriated corporation.
10. You can claim the health coverage credit (Form 8885).
11. You are claiming the adoption credit or you received employer-provided adoption benefits.
12. Your employer did not withhold Social Security and Medicare tax from your pay.
13. You had a qualified health saving account funding distribution from your IRA.
14. You are a debtor in a bankruptcy case.
15. You have a net disaster loss attributable to a federally declared disaster.
16. You must repay the first-time homebuyer credit.

Planning Tools You can download a copy of Form 1040 for future use.