IRS Posts 2026 Forms 1099-R, 5498, and Instructions
The Internal Revenue Service has posted 2026 tax year Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498 along with Form 1099-R, Distributions From Pensions, Annuities, Retirement or Profit-Sharing Plans, IRAs, Insurance Contracts, etc. and Form 5498, IRA Contribution Information. Form 1099-R is used to report distributions from retirement plans and Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs). Form 5498 is used to report IRA contributions. The two forms share one set of instructions.
Similar to the draft version of the instructions, the following items have been highlighted.
Address fields for the payer’s and recipient’s information have been updated to separate entry boxes on Form 1099-R. Trustee or issuer and participant address field information has also been updated to separate entry boxes on Form 5498.
The “IRA/SEP/SIMPLE” checkbox on Form 1099-R has been changed to boxes 7a and 7b boxes 7c (Trump account) and 7d (Earnings on excess contributions) have been added.
Box 8 of Form 1099-R has been renumbered to boxes 8a and 8b. Reporting the actuarial value of the contract in box 8a is optional for 2026 Form 1099-R. For tax year 2026, the issuer of a commercial annuity contract that has been annuitized is not required to enter the amount of the year-end value of an annuitized contract in box 8a.
For tax years after 2026, participants will be able to receive qualified long-term care distributions. Those distributions will be reported on Form 1099-R and are taxable to the participant but will not be subject to the 10% additional tax.
New code HP was added for box 14b of Form 5498 to be uses for the repayment of a qualified first-time home purchase distribution.