1099 for credit card reward points?

I'm gonna "cash out" a slew of credit card reward points between now and Christmas. It'll be more than $10 for one card, more than $600 for another, and more than $1,000 for another. Will these credit card companies be sending me 1099s for my reward point redemptions? If so, why, and if not, why not?

My understanding is that the IRS has determined for personal use these are just purchase discounts, not income.
There is some discussion of whether that requires an adjustment for business expenses.
For example, the purchase of office supplies for $500 where you get a $10 cc reward.
Is your expense deduction $500 or $490?

When I was a W-2 employee of a major corp 20 years ago I got points for airline, hotel stays and business meals.
Stupid me, I used Marriott points to get a computer for my job as the company would not buy me one.
I should have saved them for an Alaskan cruise.
But I still have some airline points that I earned in those years for business travel. Keeping them active via minor transactions.
The corp never tried to place limits on those points as the big shots were the major beneficiaries.

I just remembered that our printers were not working and the IT dept had no clue. I put a ReasLemon sticker on our shared dept printer. That is a clue as to where I worked. Ticked off the IT guys. I brought in my own printer to get my work done. This was before email. I also used my airline points for a couple of business trips. I was really stupid.

... more than $10 for one card, more than $600 for another, and more than $1,000 for another. But not more than ,,, ?

My understanding is that rewards given for personal use are non-taxable, however, rewards given for business purchases would cause the business to reduce it's deduction for that expense by the amount of the reward given.

Will these credit card companies be sending me 1099s for my reward point redemptions?

To be determined -- come back at the end of March and you might have your answer. But on a related note, I have never received a 1099-MISC for credit card reward point redemptions in cash.

Never received a 1099, but on business front I do record the rewards as other miscellaneous income. Taking full deduction, but it is offset by the recorded rewards income.

From The Tax Adviser:

https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/20 ... n2011.html

The cash equivalency doctrine essentially provides that if a promise to pay a benefit to an individual, even though unfunded, is unconditional and exchangeable for cash, the promise is the equivalent of cash and is currently taxable. The most succinct description of the cash equivalency theory is found in Cowden

It seems clear that the points issued under most employee reward programs would not be considered a cash equivalent under the Cowden standard. Years after the Cowden decision, however, Treasury issued Regs. Sec. 1.61-2(d)(4), which generally provides that a taxpayer receiving as compensation for services a note or other evidence of indebtedness has income equal to the FMV of the note at the time of its transfer. It could be argued that Regs. Sec. 1.61-2(d)(4) taxes a service provider upon receipt of a note or other evidence of indebtedness from his or her employer for services, regardless of whether the note rises to the level of a cash equivalency under the Cowden test and even though it is unfunded and unsecured.

Unfortunately, the potential conflict between Regs. Sec. 1.61-2(d)(4) and Cowden remains unreconciled. Therefore, to reduce the risk that the points issued under a reward program will be held as an “other evidence of indebtedness,” and hence taxable when awarded under the cash equivalency doctrine, employers should consider including language in their programs that prohibits participants from assigning, alienating, pledging, encumbering, or otherwise transferring their interest in the plan and should include spendthrift provisions precluding its attachment by the participant’s creditors.

Cowden, 32 T.C. 853 (1959), rev’d and remanded, 289 F.2d 20 (5th Cir. 1961), opinion on remand, T.C. Memo. 1961-229.

Both of those - the Cowden case and the Section 1.61 regulation - seem to apply to rewards or points or whatever given as consideration for services rendered. Does either of them extend also to situations where the rewards or points or whatever are not given for services rendered, as would be the case in a credit card rewards program?