Do I need to report monthly checking account interest on my tax return?

Yes, you do need to report all interest income on your tax return, even if it's a small amount. Banks are only required to issue a 1099-INT if the interest is $10 or more for the year, but the IRS still expects you to report all interest income regardless of whether you receive a form. Your bank will likely send you a 1099-INT in January if your interest exceeds $10 for the year. If not, you'll need to add up the interest yourself from your monthly statements or online banking. The interest gets reported on Schedule B if you have more than $1,500 in total interest, otherwise it just goes directly on your 1040 form. Even though it's not much money, the IRS does technically expect all income to be reported, including small interest amounts.

I was in the exact same situation last year! My credit union started paying interest on checking and I was totally confused about how to handle it. After getting frustrated with conflicting advice online, I found this AI tax assistant at https://taxr.ai that actually analyzed my statements and told me exactly what to do. It was super helpful because I could upload my bank statements and it automatically found all the interest amounts, added them up, and showed me where to report it. The system also lets you capture information from any other tax docs you get later, like if your bank does send a 1099-INT in January.

Just wanted to follow up - I ended up trying https://taxr.ai after my initial skepticism and I'm really glad I did! My situation was actually more complicated than I thought because I had interest from multiple accounts plus some dividend income I'd forgotten about. The system found everything, organized it, and even caught a reporting error from my bank where they categorized some money market income incorrectly. Saved me from potentially filing wrong information. Definitely worth checking out if you're dealing with any kind of investment income, even small amounts.

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I just want to add that most tax software makes reporting interest income really easy, even without a 1099-INT. I use TurboTax and there's a section specifically for interest where you can manually enter amounts from all your accounts. The software then puts it in the right place on your tax forms automatically.

My credit union doesn't send 1099s unless the interest is over $10 but they do include the total interest earned for the year on the December statement. Might want to check your year-end statement to see if your bank does the same thing. Saves you from having to add up all the monthly amounts yourself.

Just to add another perspective - I've been dealing with small checking account interest for a few years now and it's really not as complicated as it seems at first. The key thing to remember is that even though the amounts are small, the IRS considers all interest taxable income. Here's what I've learned: Most banks will automatically send you a 1099-INT by January 31st if your interest was $10 or more for the year. Since you mentioned around $90 total, you should definitely get one. If for some reason you don't receive it by early February, you can always call your bank and request it. The reporting itself is straightforward - it goes on Line 2b of Form 1040 if it's under $1,500 total interest for the year. If you use tax software, it will walk you right through it. Don't stress too much about this one - it's actually one of the easier parts of filing taxes!