There’s an interesting report from a reader that Chase might issue a 1099 for credit card signup bonuses which don’t have a spend requirement. We’ve seen those kinds of signup bonus offers from Chase on the Amazon credit card and Instacart credit card.
While typically a signup bonus is considered a ‘discount’ on the spend and is thus not 1099-able, signup bonuses with no spend requirement might get a Form-1099. These tax forms are typically only sent out when a total of $600 or more is received in a calendar year. We haven’t seen Chase offer high signup bonuses with no spend requirement.
And yet, this is relevant for someone who receives referral bonuses or other similar bonuses from Chase which are 1099-able. The signup bonus will combine with the referral bonus and get reported together on the 1099.
Interesting. I’ve never heard about this before and thought it worth a head-up.
I got 1099 when I received the bonus for new Chase checking account
as expected
Thanks for linking to my comment! Correct, I signed up for the Chase Amazon and also got referral pushing me over $600. Chase issued me a 1099 and included in the total, the Amazon gift card I got for signing up for the Chase Amazon card.
this is why i am in favor of bank account bonuses having a debit card spend requirement… so they wouldn’t be taxable anymore…
That won’t stop them from sending 1099s incorrectly 🙂
Is this assumption true, that bank bonuses which require debit card spend don’t issue 1099s? I don’t recall that being the case.
This is not new language. On bonuses that are higher than spending, e.g. UA explorer offers including a part of $300 or so for first purchase, you would see the same language. I did last year, no form this year, but YMMV and mine is below $600
Hopefully Barclays won’t do that on their $0.01 spend AA cards with 60k bonus.
They did not, at least last year
But thats a gift card. I do not consider a $200 Amazon GC to be equal to $200 cash.
Do you think one point/mile as valuable as they are on tax forms, say for referral bonus some years? Just curious, no offense. To me, the tax on Hilton referral bonuses are almost as high as my valuation of bonus
Well my last hilton redemption was 0.8 and my next this summer is 0.65, so that’s close to amex’s estimated value.
The IRS does. If you receive a $200 Amazon gift card through work for any sort of incentive, it should be included in your W2.
You don’t but the IRS does. I’ve received 1099-NECs for my gift card honorariums when they exceed $599. It’s an item of value and it doesn’t have to be cash.
This is interesting, thank you for posting, Chuck!