I got some tax reporting from an investment manager. For reasons I won't go into, they aren't normal 1099s and nothing is reported to the IRS (at least not in my name).
It shows "total dividends" and "Tax-exempt interest reported as dividends" (dividends on a fund that invests in municipals).
Last year my accountant added the two together and entered them on schedule B as dividends. At the bottom he substracted the tax-exempt dividends out, and then reported it as tax exempt interest.
I have exactly the same situation in an Etrade account and got a 1099DIV and
1099INT. They called it tax free interest, and made no mention of it as dividends.
The result is the same either way, but Etrade's treatment seems more logical to me. Is one method correct?