Update 3/1/19: Tax document emails are going out. There’s a 1099-B and a Form 8949. These are investment forms. Many of us only invested $50 and got a minimal loss of a few pennies. Find your forms in the Swell login:Â Settings & Info, Manage Accounts, TAX DOCUMENTS. My understanding is that even gains/losses under $1 need to be filed, hopefully an accountant can chime in below.
[Update 2/13/19: Looks like they may have ended the referral program, as reader Gadget notes.]
[Update 1/31/19: People are now seeing the payments. You’ll have to look closely, though, as it’s not readily apparent. Go to one of the tabs in the Manage Mix tab and you’ll see your available balance. You can invest it or withdraw it in those tabs.]
We posted about the Swell Investing signup promotion which offers $50 for new signups when you invest $50. They also offer $300 for someone who refers three friends.
They’ve slowly been changing the terms since launch:
- Added a limit of 18 referral bonuses for the referrer (previously, it stated there is no limit).
- Added requirement to remain a member for 60 days (previously, there was no such requirement).
- Lengthened the requirement from 60 days to 90 days.
- Apparently, they’ve now added a one-month waiting period from when the 90 days ends until they pay the bonus.
I don’t like how they enforced the terms retroactively – it makes sense how they added the 90 day requirement, and even the month payout timeframe is okay, but they should be applying the original offers terms to those who signed up before then.
In any case, we’ll be happy if/when they pay out within the next month for the initial signup waive. This isn’t even meant to be a bashing post, mainly posted a new post here since on the old post the comments are locked. We can keep any discussion about Swell here.
DO NOT POST REFERRALS IN THE COMMENTS.
RIP Swell prince
Got an e-mail from Swell pointing to the below linked article. I guess when you suck, you point out something/someone that sucks more.
https://hub.swellinvesting.com/articles/what-exactly-is-going-on-with-your-taxes-this-year?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
I suppose they have upset customers with their tax paperwork showing up last minute, so they e-mail all customers and take a dump on the IRS. Sweet!
If you receive a 1099-B showing proceeds >50 cents, you should report that on your schedule D & 8949 so you can also include your basis and calculate the trivial gain/loss. Otherwise, they’ll only be able to see $50 of proceeds and assume it is all gain with no basis.
That being said, if you already filed your returns you’ll have to weigh whether it is worth amending. You probably would just get a notice saying they are adjusting your return to include $50 of gain and then you would respond to it by calling them or sending back a written response.
The $50 gain, or $300 x ? gain for the lucky few, will come into play next years tax return. Referral bonuses didn’t pay out until January 2019. Since they just placed the money in the holding account but didn’t invest referral cash, the 1099-B shouldn’t be impacted.
Plus, we didn’t liquidate these accounts until sometime 2019… so we get to play again next year.
Got it – i was just going off of Chuck’s 3/1 update saying most invested $50 and then had trivial gain/loss for that example. You’d report any proceeds shown to you on your 2018 1099-B (if any) on the 8949 & sch B. If you sold your $50 (or $300 or whatever) in 2019 then that would be a 2019 event but you still have to deal with any 2018 forms they sent to you.
I wonder how many more will be showing up?
Once I invested in a Motif of ELP’s. Worst tax mistake of my life. Stacks of K1 paperwork all having to be entered, some of it’s not prefilled and your supposed to calculate your data. And because I had no idea what was coming at tax time, I didn’t sell until the next year so had to do it all over again next tax season.
Edit: I got the same K1 from Brookfield saw Bermuda and thought somebody had stolen my identity. This whole swell referral has been a huge debacle.
I received a K-1 from Enviva today as well as Brookfield. It is all zeroes, so maybe I don’t need to do anything. I filed my taxes a month or so ago. Why send this out 3 weeks before taxes are due?
Partnerships technically aren’t required to finalize their K-1s until 9/15, although most do by the end of March to allow their partners to finish their returns.
Depending on the dollar amounts you could just ignore it and see what happens. I’ve owned one for several years but they post mid-march every year so I know to wait until that is received to finalize my return. It usually has absolutely no impact on my tax due since the amounts are trivial (or they are suspended losses).
So glad S.O. did disease eradication… And didn’t sign up until this year.
So are all your friends and family you “referred” going bananas? I guess you can offer to use all the referral cash to buy them nice calculators! Maybe see about a TurboTax group rate?
Yes i referred many people and am dreading having that conversation with them. All my shit is in Taxact as well and now i’m going have to put 40 1099’s all in Turbotax and pay for it.
Gadget
import into turbotax. but yeah i agree this has been a huge pain..
I know I can do that but I also have to manually reenter so many 1099’s.
Snail mail. Direct from Brookfield.
If you register at taxpackagesupport.com you can create an account, download the PDF, and get notifications by email.
+1 P2 got Brookfield from Bermuda. I haven’t filed my taxes yet, but wtf..
I can’t get turbotax to import the swell transactions, anyone else having this problem? Swell customer support useless.
Try to import from “Folio Investment” per the statement. It worked for me for the sales.
Anyone else having trouble getting tax documents from Swell? When I login and go to Manage Account, then Tax Documents, I receive the message “You currently have no tax documents available.” What a hassle. This is holding up the rest of my tax preparation.
Is it possible you don’t have any? If you invested late in 2018 and didn’t exceed any of the thresholds or sell any investments their message may be accurate.
Received my $50 bonus after 90 days. Withdrew the bonus. My account is up ~14%, sold and will withdraw the rest in a few days.
Somehow I missed this DoC article update on March 1st, but I had seen the e-mail come in from Swell. Body of the e-mail has no explanation, no directions on how to print your 1099, who to call if you have question.. Just “Thanks”. What a trash company.
16 pages of paperwork for my $50 investment. SMH
I am not new to these smaller investment firms that take forever to issue 1099’s, but I imagine some of the many that signed up here are new to this. I always end up waiting until March to file for this reason.
so i got a 1099B thats showing a net $0.12 loss. i filed my taxes 3 weeks ago and already received my tax refund…i assume if i have a 12 cent loss i have no action required? this is only important for any gains i assume? the IRS doesnt care that i didnt report a 12 cent loss, correct?
That’s correct Brandon. Here’s what the IRS says about the situation: “taxpayers don’t need to file an amended return if they forgot to attach tax forms, such as… a schedule. The IRS will mail a request to the taxpayer, if needed.”
Wow, this’ll be fun for everyone who reported already… “Hi Government, I need to correct my return because I actually lost 2 cents more than I told you”
Apparently you’ve never done your own taxes. Amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar, so a gain or loss of 49 cents or less doesn’t change anything.
+1, as I recently saw it happen from within my TaxAct as I entered a minimal 1098 balance form; plus I think they had a written explanation saying exactly that – “under .49 cents, don’t bother reporting it, because the IRS would just round it down to zero”
I’ve heard that investment statements are different than some other statements and need to reported in any amount. IDK, hopefully someone more qualified can chime in.
You do round to the nearest dollar, so you wouldn’t report it if proceeds were .49, basis 0, gain .49 however you should report it if proceeds were $10.49 (enter as $10), basis $10, $0 gain. The reason is that the IRS does get the proceeds, so without reporting it they may assume/assert that the entire proceeds is gain.
If you’ve already filed your taxes, unless the amounts are material, I’d personally ignore it. You might get a letter saying your income has been adjusted by that amount and then you could deal with it then. If that happens, it is still probably less effort than amending your return.