I just received my 1099 Forms from Interactive Brokers, and there are a few things that do not line up:
- Foreign Tax Paid on 1099-DIV shows $0. I owned shares the entire year in an ETF that invests in Australian stocks, and another in Swiss stocks. I own the same ETFs in my Fidelity Brokerage account as well, and its 1099-DIV shows some Foreign Tax Paid, as I expected. Why doesn’t the Interactive Brokers’ 1099-DIV show any?
- Exempt-Interest Dividends shows only $50.90. I own shares in an ETF that invests in municipal bonds. In previous years when this ETF was in my Fidelity account, all of its dividends showed up in this box in my 1099-DIV. Why does my Interactive Brokers account’s 1099-DIV show so little? I expected thousands of dollars here.
- Lastly, I received a 1099-MISC with $2,029.87 under Substitute Payments in Lieu of Dividends or Interest. I participate in Interactive Brokers’ Security Lending Program. I assume these are the dividends paid out while some of my securities were lent out. If so, I was under the impression that Interactive Brokers was smart enough to recall lent securities right before a dividend payout so that Substitute Payments in Lieu of Dividends would stay as low as possible. Was I wrong in thinking Interactive Brokers would do this? I also paid $933.71 in margin interest last year. Since the Substitute Payments in Lieu of Dividends were reported on a 1099-MISC, shouldn’t I be able to report that as self-employment income and deduct the margin interest from it?
My suspicion is that all of this mess was caused by Interactive Broker’s Security Lending Program. If that’s the case, all I got from that program was $79 in interest last year at the expense of a much, much higher tax bill. So, why would anyone ever sign up for this?