2019 dividends showing up on my 2018 1099Div?

[TEO]

I have 4 entries on my 2018-div that are from dividends received in Jan 2019.

In my Jan2019 statement they all show up with a trade date of Jan 4th and a payable date of Jan 3rd.

This has skewed the estimates that I used to decide how much LTCG to harvest on Dec 31, 2018.

Does anyone know if this is a common thing? I looked back 7 years and it only happened one other time for me.

 

[pb4uski]

I can't ever recall it happening to me.

 

[dtbach]

I'd call and ask how a transaction in Jan '19 could be on a 2018-DIV

 

[braumeister]

Which brokerage did this?

 

[LOL!]

This is legit and required by IRS. See https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099div.pdf

Dividend payment delayed until January. If a RIC or a
REIT declares a dividend in October, November, or
December payable to shareholders of record on a specified
date in such a month, the dividends are treated as paid by
the RIC or REIT and received by the recipients on December
31 of such year as long as the dividends are actually paid by
the RIC or REIT during January of the following year. Report
the dividends on Form 1099-DIV for the year preceding the
January they are actually paid. See sections 852(b)(7) and
857(b)(9) for RICs and REITs, respectively.

 

[donheff]

Dividend payment delayed until January. If a RIC or a
REIT declares a dividend in October, November, or
December payable to shareholders of record on a specified
date in such a month, the dividends are treated as paid by
the RIC or REIT and received by the recipients on December
31 of such year as long as the dividends are actually paid by
the RIC or REIT during January of the following year. Report
the dividends on Form 1099-DIV for the year preceding the
January they are actually paid. See sections 852(b)(7) and
857(b)(9) for RICs and REITs, respectively.

I'm curious if this approach applies to Social Security payments. DW started SS this January. Here first payment will be the 20th of February. Her December 2019 payment will come on Jan 20, 2020. Will that be reported or will that count as 2020 income?

 

[TEO]

This is legit and required by IRS.

This is great info, Thanks!

On my statement, it specifically says they are payable on 1/3/19 but maybe Ameritrade's 'payable' date and the IRS 'payable' date are too different things.

I will call Ameritrade monday and ask them to look at it.

One more thing. All 4 instances are coming from Proshares and they did not do this in the 2016 tax year when my 1099div had many of the same dividends dated Dec 30th of 2016.

 

[LOL!]

One more thing. All 4 instances are coming from Proshares and they did not do this in the 2016 tax year when my 1099div had many of the same dividends dated Dec 30th of 2016.

If you go to the Proshares web site and look up the declared dates and the payable dates for 2017 and 2018, what are they? And what dates did the transactions occur on in your brokerage account? That is, I am asking for 6 dates to be shown in your response.

 

[TEO]

If you go to the Proshares web site and look up the declared dates and the payable dates for 2017 and 2018, what are they? And what dates did the transactions occur on in your brokerage account? That is, I am asking for 6 dates to be shown in your response.

Thanks for helping to troubleshoot this.

2018
Proshares website
Ex-Dividend Date..Record Date...Payable Date
12/26/2018..........12/27/2018...1/3/2019

1099 says it was paid on Jan 3rd 2019

Ameritrade January statement
Trade date...Settle date...Payable
1/04/19.......1/04/19......1/03/19

2016
Proshares website
Ex-Dividend Date..Record Date..Payable Date
12/21/2016.........12/23/2016...12/30/2016

1099 says it was paid on Dec 30,2016

Ameritrade January statement
Trade date...Settle date....Payable
1/03/17.......1/03/17.......12/30/16

So looking closer at this... it did also happen in 2016 taxes. The Jan 2017 statement shows the dividends but it was included on the 2016 1099

T.J.

 

[audreyh1]

Yes, this can happen and it is legit. It’s the fund, not the brokerage.

 

[LOL!]

Thanks for helping to troubleshoot this.

So the record dates are all in December and thus match the intent of the paragraph from the IRS. Even though the paragraph uses the word "payable", it does not use "payable date" which is a subtle distinction.

"payable to shareholders of record on a specified date in such a month,"

That bit of English could be interpreted a couple of ways, couldn't it? I don't read it as "payable on a specified date in such a month", but I read it that the record date is on a specified date in such a month. I'm sure some others would interpret it differently, but your 1099-DIV is correct and the final word on that.

But one more thing: You listed "Trade date" which suggests the dividend was auto re-invested. If true, generally at TDAmeritrade the auto re-invested date is always the day after the payable date. If one manually reinvested, then one could do that themselves the day before TDAmeritrade would do it. That is, the money would be there almost always to manually purchase something on the Payable date. (Sometimes the money shows up after the market close on the Payable date, so too late to buy something.)

 

[alaska55]

Unlike dividends from individual securities which are taxed in the year dividends are paid, mutual fund distributions declared as payable to shareholders of record in October, November or December and paid in January of the following year are taxable to shareholders based on the record date, not the payment date.

The above from interactive brokers https://ibkr.info/node/911


The same goes for etfs and Reits too and I'm sure I missed something else.

 

[TEO]

This is all very helpful. Thank you.

I think the bottom line is "now I know". I can look at Proshares website in Dec of this year and see what the record date says will be the dividends. And therefore more accurately estimate my dividends for 2019.