sam007

Referred a bunch of people for Chase business cards and got a 1099-misc with $1200, I guess I’ll have to pay tax on this now as they would have reported to the IRS

dd987

Has anyone gotten the 5 free night bonvoy card and got a 1099-MISC? I got the 1099 for my referral and I understand that but this 1099 for Bonvoy is confusing plus Chase customer support is useless.

Smiley90

I got a 1099 for the 300 USD new checking account bonus, so... not a referral, but under 600.

paslaugh

I'm having this exact issue, which I suspect is related to the 5 free nights I earned on the Boundless in fall of 2023. Is the amount on your 1099-MISC $494.66?

Happy

Just got the 1099 that includes 2x 10K UA miles at 0.01 per mile valuation, propelled the 40K Ink referral to the total of $600.
I did not know Chase issued 1099 on partner cards referral. Had I known about this, I would not be bothered with the UA referrals with one of them being asked by a fellow FTer who thought it would be good for me...

Happy

Yours is Bank Interest. The threshold is MUCH LOWER at $10.

Only referral bonuses totalled at $600 or above need to be reported as taxable income. I did not know partner cards referral bonuses also are under this reporting rules. I thought it was only the UR pts.

nmenaker

OK, THAT is a first that I have ever seen… in a 1099 some calculation for MILES earned. What does that mean for sign-up bonuses going forward? An AMEX 100K Plat sign up bonus would trigger $1000 in 1099? That would be quite the blow.

As for overall 1099, yes, pretty much anything over $600 (today, this might change) for money TO THE RECIPIENT. Doesn’t matter if it was direct, indirect, referral, whatever. It was $$ to YOU. That needs to be reported and DO NOT NEGLECT to account for all of it.

Anyone doing ANY of this type of free money, I would suggest to make sure that you have an IRS online account and REFER to the INCOME AND RECEIPTS report that you can get on your account and make sure that anything THERE is ON YOUR TAXES. I had $7.18 in unreported interest from an online bank, that had closed and actually I Never received any of that money, but it cost for $228 in penalties and interest and required withholding on interest accounts for half a decade.

Happy

So far, sign up bonuses haven't been taxed, yet - due to some IRS rulings years ago. Also anything required you to perform some tasks to earn, are not considered passive income such as interest and the referral bonus. At least is not considered as taxable income for now.

Interest over $10 is required to report. Below $10 the bank reported made an error. You can sort this out with IRS when they told you about the non-accounted for interest and the subsequent penalty. You said it was half a decade ago - that sounded quite odd. Because in the interim, IRS would have sent you a bill long long ago on the fairly large penalty on an unreported $7.28 before the half a decade time has passed. That just does not sound right.

However I do agree with you to check the IRS online account to make sure no reporting error, or catch errors in time.

Happy

I have a gut feeling this is yet another 1099 reporting fiasco Chase has done, like several years ago the outsourcing outfit in India generating 1099 for some $5 one earned when opting for paperless statement or something equally silly. Chase over a month or more later sent out corrected 1099.

The BonVoy 5 FN are sign up bonus, not referral. We have not seen any 1099 on sign up bonus, yet.

dd987

It's 457 and I talked to chase for an hour and they weren't able to tell me where it came from. Thought it would be an easy "oh you did x and it counted as taxable". I ultimately gave up, for now at least, because no one at chase knew anything. The best I got was that each one of those cert was worth $100 according to Marriott and together I got $500 but the woman seems to believe that sign up bonus is taxable but couldn't tell me how where that 457 came from. This reminds me of the time Chase sent a letter saying that they reported the wrong 1099 to IRS and asked people to redo their taxes.

nmenaker

I didn’t say it was half a decade ago, it was the withholding requirement for half a decade. And the even occurred in 2002, and that was before the $10 limit on interest earned for 1099 reporting went into effect. So, yeah, I was SOL and it took me ~ 15 hours of time, the $$ and whatever. What a PIA. I don’t mind paying taxes, that is how we have nuclear submarines, child tax credits, money for NASA, etc. etc… but this type of thing really chaps my butt.. With 300K in earnings, why on earth would I try and avoid paying taxes in $7.28 PURPOSELY… it could only have been an error or oversight, and yet maxwells hammer came down.

mia

Any value (money, miles, points, coupon, toaster) for opening a deposit account will be reported, typically on a 1099-INT.

Likewise, value you receive for a referral will be reported, typically on a 1099-MISC.

On the other hand, value you receive for opening a credit card is not reported because it is treated as a partial refund of the spend required to earn the bonus.

Upgrade bonuses usually have an attached spending requirement, so there should be nothing to report, but if you receive a "no spend" bonus it might be reported the same as a referral bonus.

Card issuers do make mistakes. The 1099 form may have a code or partial account number to help you identify the source. You may not recognize it if the account has been closed, or card reissued. The issuer should be able to tell you, but if you call the agent simply wants to get you off the line and may guess.

Cardholders do forget bonuses. Approach with an open mind. Did you receive a bonus for changing to paperless statements? Did you receive a bonus to compensate for an error?

paslaugh

I had the same thought process. It took me over an hour to get connected to the right department and the magic words seemed to be "escalation team that handles disputed 1099-MISC reporting". Even that team couldn't tell me the transaction(s) that led to the reporting, but they also thought that it was odd that they could find no awards or credits on that account that would reconcile to the income except for the sign up bonuses since I had only had the account open from September 2023.

My rep 100% understood that sign up bonuses were non-taxable, so she put in an internal request to have additional information pulled for detail on the reported income. I'm also starting to think that Chase is just sending a ton of people erroneous 1099s.

dd987

Guess I'll call again and use that keyword, let us know how that internal request goes.

divinebaboon

My wife signed up for the Chase Marriott $300 GC + 75k points offer, got $300 1099 MISC today
She referred me for 3FN, she got 40k points, and also got a $400 1099 MISC today
I'll be getting a 1099 MISC for my 3 FNs soon I think

Chase saying 40k Marriott points is worth $400 is laughable though