Last reviewed: 2026-07-29 Accepted decision: ../decisions/accepted/0025-contractor-classification-and-information-return-filing.md

Contractor and Information-Return Filing Contract

Canonical objects:

InformationReturnPayerProfile
PayeeTaxProfile
WorkerClassificationRecord
InformationReturnRuleSet
InformationReturnSupportRun
InformationReturnSupportLine
InformationReturnDraft
InformationReturnFilingSubmission
InformationReturnRecipientStatement

InformationReturnPayerProfile

Required concepts:

id and company id
legal name and reporting address
taxpayer-identifier type, protected full value, masked value, and validation status
filing contact
effective dates
reviewer, review time, and evidence references

Rules:

one effective payer profile supplies the issuer identity for a filing;
a profile is effective for a filing date when its effective-from date is on or before that date and its optional effective-to date is on or after it;
a successor explicitly references the same-company profile it supersedes; supersession preserves the prior profile and takes precedence from the successor's effective-from date;
effective selection requires exactly one non-superseded applicable profile; missing or ambiguous selection is a visible filing-readiness blocker;
filing contact is a required reviewed human-contact reference, not a transport credential or authentication secret;
full TIN values follow the same sensitive-data controls as payee TINs;
transport credentials, API secrets, and TCC secrets are not payer-profile fields or ordinary application configuration; and
used profile history is superseded, not silently overwritten.

PayeeTaxProfile

Required concepts:

id and company id
source system and external payee id
effective dates
party roles
worker relationship
supplier categories
information-return treatment
legal or reporting name
reporting address
W-9 received, signed, certification, and validation status
taxpayer-identifier type, protected full value, masked value, and validation status
reviewer, review time, and evidence references

Conditional concepts:

DBA name
federal tax classification
MISC reporting category
foreign-payee review status
backup-withholding review status
superseded profile reference

Rules:

company, source system, and external payee identity are required and stable;
a profile is not a general Party or operational vendor master;
party role, worker relationship, supplier category, and information-return treatment remain separate attributes;
an independent contractor is also a supplier/payee;
vendor or supplier status alone does not establish contractor or information-return treatment;
full taxpayer identifiers are required for filing and follow ADR 0025 sensitive-data controls and the ADR 0030 envelope design;
the ordinary profile snapshot contains only the protected-payload identity, envelope/key version, masked value, type, and validation state, never plaintext TIN, ciphertext, nonce, tag, or wrapped key;
Form W-9 is retained or referenced as sensitive Source Document evidence and is not filed with the IRS; and
used profile history is superseded, not silently overwritten.

Protected taxpayer-identifier payload

Required concepts:

immutable payload id, company id, owner type, and owner id
payload purpose
envelope and algorithm version
payload nonce, ciphertext, and authentication tag
wrapped data key nonce, ciphertext, and authentication tag
company-key version
authenticated-context version
logical write identity and plaintext digest used only for replay comparison
created time and actor

Rules:

payload and data keys use AES-256-GCM with independently generated keys and nonces;
authenticated context binds company, owner, purpose, payload id, and envelope version;
ordinary profile queries do not read or decrypt the payload;
maintenance, full-value view, and sensitive export use distinct protected actions;
exact logical replay is idempotent and changed plaintext is a conflict;
integrity errors disclose no taxpayer value, ciphertext, or key detail; and
audit events contain object identity and result but no taxpayer identifier, masked value, ciphertext, digest, or key material.

Sensitive W-9 Source Document artifact

Required concepts:

Source Document and managed artifact identity
company, sensitivity classification, media type, and byte length
ciphertext integrity digest
protected-payload envelope identity
created time and actor

Rules:

Source Documents own W-9 evidence identity and supersession;
artifact storage uses an opaque generated identity;
artifact bytes are encrypted before durable storage;
full-value artifact reads require payee_tax_profile.view_tin;
routine exports and support bundles exclude artifact contents; and
replacement preserves the prior Source Document and artifact.

WorkerClassificationRecord

Required concepts:

id and company id
payee profile id
worker relationship
effective dates
decision date
approving actor id
reason or reviewed conclusion
Source Document evidence references

Conditional concepts:

next review date
questionnaire or contract references
superseded classification reference

Rules:

allowed relationships are employee, independent_contractor, classification_under_review, and not_applicable;
BooksPlus does not infer the relationship from a W-9, invoice, contract, account, supplier category, or payment history;
employee compensation is outside Purchasing and 1099 support; and
unresolved classification does not block recognition of a valid payable or recording the accounting result of an externally issued payment;
unresolved classification blocks contractor and information-return readiness and remains a visible exception.

InformationReturnRuleSet

Required concepts:

stable key and version
jurisdiction and tax year
effective dates
form and reporting category
aggregation basis, threshold, and threshold comparison operator
payee inclusion, exemption, and exception rules
payment-nature rules
payment-method and payment-network rules
filing and recipient-statement deadlines
accepted form revision
authoritative source and review date

Conditional concepts:

backup-withholding support rules
superseded rule-set reference

Rules:

thresholds are versioned data and are never a universal hard-coded $600;
historical support runs retain the rule version used;
payment cards, qualifying third-party networks, ACH, checks, and other payment methods remain distinguishable; and
later rules do not rewrite prior tax-year results.

InformationReturnSupportRun

Required concepts:

id and company id
tax year and jurisdiction
rule-set key and version
requested by actor and requested time
as-of or run time
run status
support lines
totals by reporting category
exception and exclusion totals
source posted-entry references

Allowed statuses:

completed
completed_with_exceptions

Rules:

amount truth derives from posted journal entries and linked posted Purchasing payment facts;
Summary batches, import candidates, and unposted payments are not report amount truth;
generation covers every successfully posted, original purchasing_vendor_payment_summary fact in the requested company and tax year exactly once;
an explicit reviewed payment-support candidate links each covered Purchasing fact and successful journal entry to one effective same-company payee profile, payment nature, method, network classification, proposed treatment, reporting category, and applicable rule citations;
missing, duplicate, extra, unposted, cross-company, wrong-year, or unreconciled candidate mappings block persistence and remain visible generation issues;
resolved exclusions and unresolved exceptions remain separate: included, excluded, and exception amounts sum exactly to gross amount on every line and for the run;
threshold comparison uses the selected versioned rule-set value and operator after aggregation on the rule set's declared basis; it is not a code constant;
ledger, Purchasing-fact, reviewed-candidate, and support-line gross totals reconcile exactly before a run is persisted;
the support run is the specialized persisted report-run record for this report definition and preserves its parameters and complete snapshot;
exact replay of one run identity is idempotent, changed meaning conflicts, and a rerun uses a new identity;
reruns preserve prior completed runs rather than overwriting them;
formal output uses the persisted report-run path; and
the support run itself is review support, not a filed information return.

InformationReturnDraft

Required concepts:

id and company id
tax year and jurisdiction
form type and revision
payer-profile identity, legal name, reporting address, masked TIN, and protected full-TIN reference
stable payee identity, effective payee-profile id, reporting name and address, masked TIN, and protected full-TIN reference
posted-payment support-line references
reportable and backup-withholding amounts
rule-set key and version
draft status and validation issues
prepared by actor and prepared time

Rules:

initial filing scope is 1099_NEC;
draft preparation requires information_return_draft.prepare;
ordinary draft persistence and reads contain masked TIN values and protected payload references only; they never load or retain plaintext TIN, ciphertext, nonce, authentication tag, digest, or wrapped key;
untruncated payer and payee TIN values are assembled only through the later protected filing handoff;
one draft aggregates all included support lines for one stable source-system and external-payee identity;
the effective reviewed payee profile for the filing date supplies reporting identity, and missing or ambiguous selection is a visible readiness blocker;
every amount reconciles to the selected completed support run and posted payment basis;
a draft is not an IRS filing or proof of filing;
payer and payee TIN values remain protected and masked in ordinary review;
filing readiness requires resolved classification and payee profile, reportable threshold or other filing requirement, exact form revision, and no unresolved errors; and
approval is distinct from preparation.

InformationReturnFilingSubmission

Required concepts:

id and company id
information-return draft id
submission kind: original or correction
transport profile and version
idempotency key
approved by actor and approved time
exact payload hash and protected payload reference
submission status
created and updated timestamps

Conditional concepts:

correction target submission id
correction evidence Source Document id
handoff-export actor and time
submitted by actor and submitted time
external submission id when assigned
protected IRS acknowledgment and error references
result-recording actor and time

Allowed statuses:

prepared
approved
submitted
accepted
accepted_with_errors
rejected
correction_required
superseded

Rules:

provider-agnostic filing identity and state do not depend on IRIS vocabulary;
the initial portal transport profile is irs_iris_taxpayer_portal_keyed version 1;
the keyed-entry handoff is a versioned canonical BooksPlus package for authorized human entry into the portal, not an IRS CSV template or claim of IRS acceptance;
BooksPlus does not hard-code a portal CSV template because the IRS owns and versions those tax-year and form-specific templates;
approval revalidates one ready draft, decrypts its exact payer and payee TIN references, creates one protected handoff payload, and persists only its protected reference and SHA-256 identity in the ordinary filing snapshot;
handoff export requires information_return_filing.export_handoff, returns the exact approved payload, and does not change filing status;
submitted means an authorized user confirmed that the exact approved handoff was submitted through the portal; export alone is not submission;
normalized portal results are accepted, accepted_with_errors, rejected, or correction_required; raw acknowledgments and errors remain protected;
result recording requires information_return_filing.record_result;
one logical original return has at most one accepted original submission;
one draft has one original filing identity; a second original identity is a conflict even before acceptance;
retries with identical meaning reuse the same idempotency identity;
changed meaning requires a correction relationship, not a replacement original;
a correction references the latest accepted, accepted-with-errors, or correction-required filing in its return chain and uses a different ready draft whose company, tax year, jurisdiction, form type, and stable payee identity match that filing;
a correction requires active same-company Source Document evidence, preserves the corrected submission, and cannot fork an already corrected chain member;
a correction whose protected handoff has the same payload meaning as its target is rejected as an exact retry rather than persisted as a correction;
rejected originals are retried under their existing original filing identity when meaning is unchanged; they are not eligible correction targets;
correction approval uses information_return_filing.correct, requires a reason and step-up confirmation, and otherwise follows the same protected handoff, submission-confirmation, and result rules as an original;
approval, handoff export, submission confirmation, and result recording are distinct protected actions;
approval and handoff export require a reason and step-up confirmation;
a held draft, changed draft meaning, locked company key, missing or wrong-owner TIN payload, unresolved readiness issue, payload-integrity failure, or cross-company request blocks approval;
submission confirmation requires an approved filing and exact payload hash;
a portal result requires a submitted filing and exact logical replay;
acknowledgments never change posted accounting;
exact payloads, acknowledgments, and errors are sensitive evidence; and
the initial release uses the IRIS Taxpayer Portal handoff;
portal handoff and a later direct A2A adapter use the same canonical submission.

InformationReturnRecipientStatement

Required concepts:

id and company id
information-return draft id
filing-submission id and submission kind
statement form and revision
permitted masked recipient TIN
exact filing-payload hash
protected statement-payload reference and exact payload hash
reportable and backup-withholding amounts and currency
generated actor and time
delivery status
delivery method when recorded
delivery-evidence Source Document reference when recorded
delivery-recording actor and time when recorded
created and updated timestamps and revision

Allowed delivery statuses:

prepared
delivered
delivery_failed
returned
superseded

Rules:

statement preparation requires information_return_recipient_statement.prepare;
preparing and exporting the protected statement payload require a reason and step-up confirmation; export uses the distinct information_return_recipient_statement.export action;
one statement identity is created for each approved original or correction filing submission and exact replay reuses that identity;
the statement copies the approved filing's draft identity, form revision, reporting identity, amounts, currency, and exact filing-payload hash so it reconciles without decrypting the filing handoff;
recipient TIN masking follows the selected tax-year rule;
the payer TIN is not truncated on a recipient statement;
ordinary statement persistence contains no full taxpayer identifier, protected payload contents, ciphertext, digest, or key material;
statement delivery status is distinct from IRS filing status; and
recording a delivery outcome requires information_return_recipient_statement.record_delivery, an active same-company Source Document, an explicit delivery method, actor, and time;
delivery replay is exact and a changed reuse of delivery identity conflicts;
a corrected filing receives a new corrected statement; the prior statement remains durable and becomes superseded only after the corrected statement is recorded as delivered; and
delivery evidence and audit output do not expose full TIN values.

InformationReturnSupportLine

Required concepts:

payee profile id
masked payee identity
Purchasing payment-fact, Summary batch, and successful posted journal-entry references
tax year
payment nature and method
gross, included, and excluded amounts
exception amount
proposed form and reporting category
treatment result
rule citations or reason codes

Conditional concepts:

vendor invoice allocations
exclusion or exception reason
backup-withholding amount already supplied and posted
classification, W-9, foreign-payee, or TIN exception

Rules:

each posted payment amount is evaluated once for a support run;
payee_tax_year aggregation groups related profile versions by stable source-system and external-payee identity, never by profile-record id;
the effective payee profile and optional effective worker-classification record are evaluated at the payment date;
payment allocations reconcile to the payment total;
exclusions require explicit evidence and rule support;
employee payments cannot become nonemployee-compensation lines;
unresolved classification, treatment, profile, payment-network, or rule-support meaning remains an exception amount and is not silently included or described as an exclusion;
reversed or corrected payments follow posted correction truth; and
support totals reconcile to the posted ledger basis.

Protected actions

payee_tax_profile.maintain
payee_tax_profile.view_tin
information_return_payer_profile.maintain
information_return_payer_profile.view_tin
information_return_support.generate
information_return_draft.prepare
information_return_filing.approve
information_return_filing.export_handoff
information_return_filing.submit
information_return_filing.record_result
information_return_filing.correct
information_return_recipient_statement.prepare
information_return_recipient_statement.export
information_return_recipient_statement.record_delivery
information_return_support.export_sensitive

Protected actions resolve actor and company context and emit audit events without taxpayer identifiers or sensitive evidence contents.

purchasing-and-payables-summary-fact.contract.md
source-document.contract.md
security/company-data-encryption-contract.md
security/backup-security-contract.md
journal-entry.contract.md
security/role-permission-contract.md
security/audit-event-contract.md

Contractor and Information-Return Filing Contract

InformationReturnPayerProfile

PayeeTaxProfile

Protected taxpayer-identifier payload

Sensitive W-9 Source Document artifact

WorkerClassificationRecord

InformationReturnRuleSet

InformationReturnSupportRun

InformationReturnDraft

InformationReturnFilingSubmission

InformationReturnRecipientStatement

InformationReturnSupportLine

Protected actions

Related binding contracts