Another provision with the potential to cause businesses headaches has emerged from the 2,409-page health-reform law.

This one could mean loads and loads of tax paperwork for businesses.

Beginning in 2012, all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not only to contract workers but also to any corporation or individual from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services during a tax year, CNNMoney.com reported.

The bill expands the scope of how 1099s are used by requiring them to be issued to corporations instead of just individuals and for purchase of tangible goods as well as services.

For example, if a freelance designer were to buy a new computer from an Apple Store, he or she would have to send Apple a 1099.

The tax code revisions were likely included in the health-reform bill to help make up for some of the cost of the bill. The hope is that the new rules will make it easier for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to find payments that previously went unreported and stop freelancers and independent operators from making large numbers of possibly fraudulent deductions on their returns.

A trail of 1099s could also expose small operators who currently might not report all payments to the IRS. The IRS estimates that income that would generate approximately $300 billion in tax payments goes unreported.

Until the IRS issues its final regulations regarding the law, the statute’s final impact won’t be known. Those regulations aren’t expected to be complete until sometime next year. Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) introduced legislation last week that would repeal the new requirements.

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