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Does my daughter have to file?

My 17 year old daughter has a W2 from the ice cream shop she worked in last summer?

She earned $2768. She paid $115 in Federal tax and $135 in Massachusetts state tax.

The federal tax table for $2768 says $276. She has no other income, winnings, interest, dividends, gifts or anything.

Does she have to file as single and pay the IRS the difference? She cannot claim herself as a deduction because I claim her on my 1040 as a dependant.

Or do I include her W2 along with mine, add up boxes number 1 on both and put the total in line 7 on my 1040?

Or just do nothing with hers?

And a related question then I guess. Is there a minimum amout of money you can earn before you pay tax? It wouldn't seem so or perhaps it's $4, because the tax table in the

1040 instruction book shows tax for $5 and up.

Now the instructions say you that if you are a dependant (like my daughter) and you were not over 65 or blind (again my daughter) and your earned income was under $5450 (my daughter) then you do not have to file.

But not filing surely isn't the same thing as not paying tax. Are they saying that if you earn under $5450 that we don't care if you only paid $1 or $0 tax, keep it, don't bother us?

So this is where my daughter is, she's a dependant of mine, earned under $5450 but doesn't have to file even though she has to pay taxes and apparently didn't pay enough taxes.

Any help and enlightenment would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Reply to
spacemancw
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If the $2,768 is all her income in 2008 then her tax liability is zero. Even though she doesn't get a personal exemption, she still can use the standard deduction for her filing status. Although there are limits on standard deduction for a dependent, from the facts you presented, your daughter's standard deduction is at least $2,768.

It is NOT your income. It does NOT go on your tax return.

She should file a return if he wants a refund of the tax dollars withheld from her paychecks. I don't know about Massachusetts but she should get a full refund of federal income taxes withheld.

If gross income equals or exceeds the sum of the taxpayer's standard deduction and personal exemption, the taxpayer must file.

The tax table shows taxable income. The filing requirement is based on gross income.

Your daughter does not have to file unless she wants her money back.

You are correct. One can file without paying or pay without filing. Everyone with salary withholding has paid federal income taxes whether they file or not. Usually, that withholding does NOT turn out to be equal to an individual's actual tax liability.

Not exactly. If she had exactly $5,450 of wages, she wouldn't owe a dollar.

She doesn't have to pay taxes. She does have to file to get a refund of the taxes that were withheld from her paychecks.

Reply to
Bill Brown

That is correct. She doesn't HAVE TO file. But she may WANT TO.

Again, correct. If she chooses to file a tax return (like the 1040-EZ) it will show that she owes no tax. But she already paid $115 in Federal withholding. So she gets it back!

The error you made was to take her entire income and look up the tax in the tax tables. You should have taken her income and subtracted her standard deduction before you went to the tax tables. For a dependent, the standard deduction is basically the same as her wages, up to a max of $5,450.

You will want to fill out a Massachusetts form also. I don't the specifics about Massachusetts, but if it were New York she would get her full $135 back also.

Reply to
Don Priebe

Your miscalculation. What the table says is true. However, her $2,768 doesn't mean you look up $2,768 in the table.

That would be FRAUD.

You're misinterpreting the table. Taxable income isn't gross income for an individual.

You obviously need a tax preparer since you don't seem to understand the basic workings of our system.

She should file to get a refund of her withholdings. Why she didn't claim exempt from withholding for that small amount of income is another mystery.

Reply to
D. Stussy

The kiddie tax does not apply to earned income. If she had unearned income (dividends, interest, capital gains) in excess of $1,800 then a kiddie tax is in order. The income can be either included in the parent's return (form 8814, and thus taxed at the higher rates), or the child can file the their own return and a special form (form 8615) that will tax them at their parent's rate. This rule is to prevent rich people from shifting their income to their kids in order to lower their tax.

For your case, see standard deduction for dependents

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