To improve understanding of REIT-based real estate investment and to encourage more investors to invest in REITs, Nareit has for more than 20 years collected from its members dividend data. The data are transmitted to investors and used later by academics and others to analyze the significant dividend streams that REITs have provided for decades. Prior to Nareit’s efforts, brokerage houses and mutual funds received investor complaints about their need to file amended 1099s from REIT investments, but the process now used has ameliorated those complaints.
Nareit has continued the automated process implemented several years ago to improve the reporting process for member REITs that submit their tax reporting (IRS Form 1099-DIV) data to Nareit.
The data repository offers an excellent way to make sure that shareholders (as well as the mutual funds and brokers who are their intermediaries) receive correct 1099 data on REIT dividends on a timely basis for the purpose of preparing their tax returns. More than 180 companies submitted information last year for Nareit's annual effort to collect data on IRS Form 1099-DIV reporting by stock exchange-listed and public non-listed Nareit member companies.
(Contact: Dara Bernstein at dbernstein@nareit.com)