Chapter 8 Miscellaneous — Internal Revenue Bulletin 1997-50

Paper Substitutes Paper substitutes for Form 1042–S, Foreign Person’s U.S. Source Income Subject to Withholding, that totally conform to the specifications contained in this procedure may be privately printed without prior approval from the Internal Revenue Service. Proposed substitutes not conforming to these specifications must be submitted for consideration.

Timeframe for The request should be submitted by November 15 of the year prior to the year the form is to be used. This Submission of is to allow the Service adequate time to respond and the submitter adequate time to make any corrections. Form 1042–S These requests should contain a copy of the proposed form, the need for the specific deviation(s), and the number of information returns to be printed.

Revisions Form 1042–S is subject to annual review and possible change. Withholding agents and form suppliers are cautioned against overstocking supplies of the privately printed substitutes.

Obtaining Copies Copies of the official form for the reporting year may be obtained from most Service offices. The Service provides only cut sheets (no carbon interleaves) of these forms. Continuous fan-fold/pin-fed forms are not provided.

Instructions For Instructions for withholding agents: Withholding Agents

Only original copies may be filed with the Service. Carbon copies and reproductions are not acceptable.
The term “Recipient’s U.S. taxpayer identification number” for an individual means the social security

number (SSN) or individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN), consisting of nine digits separated by hyphens as follows: 000-00-0000. For all other recipients, the term means employer identification number (EIN). The EIN consists of nine digits separated by hyphen as follows: 00-0000000. The taxpayer identification number (TIN) must be in one of these formats.

Withholding agents are requested to type or machine print whenever possible, provide quality data entries

on the forms (that is, use black ribbon and insert data in the middle of blocks well separated from other printing and guidelines), and take other measures to guarantee a clear, sharp image. Withholding agents are not required, however, to acquire special equipment solely for the purpose of preparing these forms.

On corrected returns, the words CORRECTED RETURN must be typed in all capital letters in the top 1/4”,

right of center margin. All required information must be completed on a corrected return since it replaces and supersedes the information return previously filed.

Substitute forms prepared in continuous or strip form must be burst and stripped to conform to the size

specified for a single form before they are filed with the Service. The dimensions are found below. Computer cards are acceptable provided they meet all requirements regarding layout, content, and size.

Substitute Forms Format Requirements

Property	Substitute Forms Format Requirements
Printing	Privately printed substitute Forms 1042–S must be exact replicas of the official forms with respect to layout and contents. Only the dimensions of the substitute form may differ and the printing of the Government Printing Office symbol must be deleted. The exact dimensions are found below.
Line Entries	Line 1 must be present, line 2 may be omitted if it is not needed. If line 2 is omitted, also omit line 3.
Boxes	None of the boxes can be omitted. Each box (a through h) must be present and in the exact order. The box for each payment amount must contain the appropriate caption.

December 15, 1997 44 1997–50 I.R.B.