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- If you contributed to investing accounts in 2020, you should receive a corresponding tax form.
- Most investment apps provide 1099-DIV, 1099-INT, 1099-B, 1099-R, 1099-Q, or 5498 tax forms.
- You can request them by contacting your investment app, or by logging into your account.
- See Insider’s guide to filing taxes in 2021.
As the tax-filing deadline approaches, don’t forget that you’ll need tax forms for any investing you did in 2020.
Brokerages and investment apps typically make these available a few months before the April 15 tax deadline (though note that the IRS has extended the 2021 filing deadline to May 17).
If you haven’t received tax documents for your investments – whether electronically or via mail – you have a few options for retrieving them.
The different types of tax forms for investment accounts
The two types of forms you should be on the lookout for are 1099 forms and 5498 forms. But there are different variations of 1099 forms worth pointing out.
For instance, 1099-DIV forms represent your investment dividends and distributions, but you’ll need 1099-INT forms to report any interest income you’ve earned from investments. Meanwhile, form 1099-Rs are used for distributions from retirement plans, IRAs, annuities, and pensions.
Like 1099-Rs, 5498 forms are used for retirement accounts. The difference is that 5498s are specifically designed for IRA contributions or rollovers. If you have any education or college-savings plans, you’ll likely receive a 1099-Q form or a 5498-ESA for Coverdell Education Savings Accounts.
In addition, automated investment apps like Betterment issue out 1099-Bs. These are tax forms that report earnings from sales of stocks, commodities, bonds, and other securities.
What to do if you haven’t received your investment tax forms
The IRS usually requires investment apps to send 1099 forms by February, but the deadline for paper filers sending the forms to the IRS via mail is March 1. As for 5498 forms, you should receive these by May 31, according to the IRS.
If you set up an investment account in 2021, you won’t receive any investment tax forms, since the account wasn’t open during the 2020 tax year. You’ll likely receive tax forms in 2022 for any investment income you earn in 2021.
But if you’ve owned investments before 2021 and haven’t received your 1099 forms yet, you can contact your investment app or issuer to request the documents. In a perfect scenario, you can access these tax forms by logging onto your investment platform, but you may have to do some extra digging if the company hasn’t sent them and hasn’t provided information on where to find them.
Another option is to do it yourself. If you’ve kept electronic receipts or notes of your investment transactions and earnings, you can also fill in this information on your tax return without the brokerage-issued forms.
The DIY route can be a bit trickier since you have to fill in all of the numbers and details on your own. But if for some reason there are any errors, you can correct them by submitting a 1040-X amended tax return form electronically.
Rickie Houston is a wealth-building reporter at Personal Finance Insider who covers investing, brokerage, and wealth-building products.
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