What is a 1040 tax form?

Learn what the 1040 tax form is, which attachments you need, and how you can fill and sign your tax forms digitally.

Both individuals and businesses need to file their taxes correctly to avoid incurring penalty fees or worse, litigation. But the mountains of different tax documents can make the job challenging. Here, we’ll look at Form 1040, what it is, and how you can make completing it easier.

Learn about the 1040 form.

Form 1040 — officially titled “U.S. Individual Income Tax Return” — is an IRS-issued tax form for reporting personal federal income tax returns. It’s the main tax form for individuals who are U.S. residents.

You use this form to calculate how much you owe in taxes or how big a tax refund you can expect. The two-page 1040 form is always due on the year’s Tax Day.

Which 1040 Schedule to use?

In some circumstances, you may have to file a Schedule with your Form 1040. The three possible Schedules include:

• Schedule 1: Use this Schedule to report additional income, such as unemployment compensation, alimony, farm income, or gambling winnings.
• Schedule 2: With Schedule 2, you can report any additional taxes you owe, like self-employment tax or taxes on retirement plans.
• Schedule 3: This schedule is for claiming tax credits you didn’t claim on the 1040 form, like foreign tax credit or general business credit.

How to fill Form 1040.

The IRS website has detailed instructions for how to fill in Form 1040. You can also download a PDF version of 1040 that you can fill with a PDF editing software, like Adobe Acrobat.

Open the 1040 PDF form in Acrobat and type in your information. Remember also to check the correct tick boxes. Once you’ve finished filling out the form, you can sign it digitally with the Fill & Sign tool.

You can also easily fill and sign your 1040 with Acrobat online services. Find out more about working with PDFs online.

Discover everything you can do with Acrobat to fill, convert, and share PDFs today.