In addition to the points that Garrick Saito makes, let me point out that if you do work for a business and that business should have filed a 1099-MISC return with respect to payments made to you, but did not, and that business gets examined by the IRS, the IRS will quite likely flag your return for an examination as well. What this means is that, two to five years later, the IRS will call you in and ask you to explain why this income, that they now know about because they found it on the examination of another taxpayeru2019s return, was not reported. And now you have a tax delinquency to pay for, over a return that was possibly as much as six years ago.If, however, your tax return reflects that income in an appropriate manner, you will just show the IRS your records and they will go u201cOk then, thank you, have a nice dayu201d. Or they will determine that you reported the income as required in the first place and not call you in for an examination at all.You are much better off reporting all of your taxable income whether or not you believe it has been reported to the IRS, and file a true and accurate return based on your records, not a false and deceptive return based on what you think you can get away with.