Chase recently began offering some checking bonuses in the form of Ultimate Rewards instead of cash. There’s the current Sapphire Banking 60,000 points bonus for personal accounts, and there was previously – now expired – a 30,000 or 50,000 points bonus for a business checking account earlier this year. We weren’t positive how Chase would value the Ultimate Rewards points or if they’d send a Form 1099 at all.
The verdict is now in: they do send a Form 1099INT for points bank bonuses with a valuation of 1 cent per point. A friend just got a Form 1099INT for the 30,000 points business checking bonus, and presumably the Sapphire Banking bonus is getting a Form 1099INT as well. It’s basically what we’d have expected, at least they aren’t valuing it more than 1 cent per point.
Citi also sends out a Form 1099 for bank bonuses which are in the form of ThankYou points, but they only send out if you earned $600+ since they consider it under the 1099MISC category1099 which is only required to be reported at the $600 threshold. Chase puts account bonuses along with interest earnings on the Form 1099INT which is reportable on earnings as little as $10.
We’ll have a post up tomorrow with a more general roundup of details on 1099 forms being sent out now.
Anyone get a 1099-INT this tax season for Ultimate Rewards earned from a Sapphire checking upgrade in 2019?
Did anyone use a separate EIN for their business? If so, is the 1099 under the business tax ID, or personal? Should be business, but I’d like to double check.
i received one from chase for regular checking and savings and that is normal from chase…. what does happen if bank doesn’t send one out and you received a bonus from them? do you have to go in a branch and request one or not? thanks
If you didn’t receive a 1099 covering something you think should have been on one, you can still add it to your tax filing without an associated 1099 if you want to. I don’t think Chase can generate 1099s for things their automated system didn’t decide to generate one for.
You would include it on your tax form anyways. You do not need a 1099/W-2 etc to claim income, its more of a convenience to help you file your taxes. Best of luck
If your copy never got issued, the IRS may not know about it, but if your copy got lost in the mail, IRS is definitely going to know about it.
This fellow recommends reporting the income but not asking for the 1099. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/01/29/missing-a-form-1099-why-you-shouldnt-ask-for-it/
and this is why i dont do chase bank deposit pts.
first you potentially pay income tax or at least explain to the IRS why your too poor to pay, then maybe pay YQ on that shit or get told to fuck off because your “taxable points” are non-transferable to airlines (aka citi).
no thank you.
Not true about Citi, i did the $300 bank bonus and got a 1099 for it.
Cash bonuses are reported in the year earned. Thank You points bonuses are reported when you redeem them. Sounds like you got a cash bonus.
So what if I had three different cards less than $6oo in value but then combined them, the points were earned separately using different chase cards, now one card has 200,000 combined points from multiple cards
(1) does adding the points from multiple cards into one card automatically make me receive the 1099
(2) do I automatically get the 1099 if I still haven’t used the points or cashed them out.
Chase doesn’t send out 1099s on bonuses earned on credit cards. Only bank accounts.
I did the $300.00 bonus Business Checking and a few months later, the $300.00 personal Total Checking. Each account paid with a $300.00 credit to each checking account. Not UR.
This week, I received two 1099-INT one for each account. The forms are identical in all details. .lt would be very easy to mistake them for duplicates.
I did checking + savings together, and have the same. It’s just one issued form, only both accounts link to it.
So UR points held by Chase from your bank account signup bonus are considered your property. UR Points held by Chase from your credit card account signup bonus are technically the property of Chase? The I.R.S. taxes the former but not the latter, because they consider the latter a discount and the former as income.
it’s not about whose property it is (which they are yours, in both cases). it’s about how they were obtained, CC rewards are a rebate, while bank bonuses are not. the first one requires a purchase, the latter not
“Points aren’t your property and have no cash value. You can’t transfer or move points unless expressly provided for in this agreement. Additionally, points can’t be transferred by operation of law, such as by inheritance, in bankruptcy or in connection with a divorce.”
(from: Chase Sapphire Reserve® with Ultimate Rewards Program Agreement – 6/28/2018).
Indeed, I believe Citi only counts the income in the year in which the points are redeemed. Sounds like Chase just goes by when they are earned.
Typically income taxes apply when income is received rather than when its spent.
Fine, but it’s not About ownership. You’re missing the point
I do understand your point about why they’re treated differently. But I used to assume that all UR points were pretty much governed under the same rules. But by Chase awarding bank account bonuses in UR points, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
So if Chase chose to take your points, they’d be seizing your property, that you were taxed on. Interesting. hmm. When Wells Fargo took all my points, they left my $25 signup bonus sitting there. I just can’t access it cuz I didn’t open a new account- they closed that account. Interesting that bank bonuses are more well protected…
Yup sounds like you have a case of filing a police complaint of larceny against the bank.
Would Chase referral bonus also counts toward the $600 threshold for 1099-MISC?
We’ll have a bit more on this in a post tomorrow.
This seems reasonable. Tax on bank bonuses is expected and 1cpp is correct for chase