Why am I getting a 1042-S form for my security deposit with $0.00 amounts?

The 1042-S form is specifically used to report income paid to foreign persons that's subject to withholding. It sounds like there might have been a coding error in your account that mistakenly identified you as a non-US person for tax purposes. Since the amounts are all showing $0.00, your accountant is correct that there's nothing to worry about for tax filing purposes. The bank likely realized the error (that's why the amounts are zeroed out) but their system still generated and sent the form automatically. If you want to prevent this from happening again next year, you might want to contact the bank and verify they have you correctly coded as a US person in their system. Sometimes this happens when SSN information is missing or entered incorrectly in their database.

I had a similar issue last year trying to figure out weird tax forms from my bank. I spent HOURS on the phone getting nowhere until I found taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai). You just upload any tax document and it explains exactly what it means and what you need to do with it. It saved me so much time trying to decipher all the banking mumbo-jumbo. For your 1042-S situation, they'd explain what each box means and why you're getting this form instead of your usual 1099-INT. Might save you a call to that bank which would probably be frustrating anyway.

I was totally wrong about taxr.ai - used it yesterday for a weird form my investment account sent me and it was actually super helpful. The system immediately recognized my 1099-B and explained all the wash sale stuff I never understood before. No Google searching required and it was way clearer than the IRS website. Definitely bookmarking it for next year when I have more complicated stuff to figure out.

This happened to me last year with my apartment security deposit too! After calling the bank 6 times and getting nowhere (literally hours on hold), I used Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) to finally get through to a real person at the bank. They have this service where they wait on hold with the IRS or other financial companies for you, then call you when a real human picks up. You can see how it works at https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The bank rep explained they had a system error that flagged some domestic accounts as foreign. They fixed it right away and sent me the correct 1099-INT for the next year. Might be worth checking if you want to avoid getting the wrong form again.

I actually tried Claimyr last week after posting that skeptical comment because I needed to talk to someone at the IRS about a missing refund. Holy crap it actually works! I was expecting to waste 3+ hours on hold like last time, but I got a call back in about 45 minutes saying they had an IRS agent on the line. Completely changed my mind about these services.

The 1042-S situation happens because banks are required to have proper documentation on file to verify you're a US person. If they don't have a W-9 or if there was an issue with your SSN validation, they default to treating you as foreign and issuing a 1042-S. The $0.00 amount suggests they caught the error after generating the form but before withholding any money. Some banking systems automatically generate these forms even when amounts are zero.

I work at a bank (not yours obviously) and we had a system update last year that accidentally flagged a bunch of domestic accounts as foreign. We had to send out 1042-S forms because the system had already generated them, but we made sure to zero out all the amounts so customers wouldn't be affected. Sounds like exactly what happened to you!

Did anyone else notice OP said they received TWO copies of the 1042-S? That's actually normal - you're supposed to get multiple copies. One is for your records, one is for federal filing (though with $0 you don't need to file it), and sometimes a third copy for state filing depending on where you live.