<p>“I believe the cutoff was around $17,000.”</p>
<p>I had not heard of that. Since we were full paying customers to one of those expensive schools, he does meet # 4. His income got inflated because of those imputed money his summer employer gave for his moving and rental expenses.</p>
<p>marite: I sent you a PM regarding PA taxes.</p>
<p>Thank you, Simba. Very helpful.</p>
<p>
I’m not talking about health insurance that students have to buy. I’m saying that SOME grad programs, in addition to a stipend will also provide health insurance. Both my kids received such health insurance for their grad programs. They didn’t have to pay for it.</p>
<p>I was just telling the person who was worried about claiming his child as a dependent for the health insurance, that he may not have to worry about it if his grad program provides health insurance.</p>
<p>IRS Publication 17 is a great help in answering many of the questions raised in this thread. <a href=“http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p17.pdf[/url]”>http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p17.pdf</a></p>
<p>There’s a worksheet on page 35 of the publication that calculates whether a person provides more than half of his own support.</p>
<p>3bm103: Thanks. Unfortunately his grad program does not provide health ins.</p>
<p>The IRS doesn’t care how you file if you follow the rules. That is, you can file separately if you’re married, you can claim a dependent or not. If your kid wants to file a return, he can as long as no one claims him as a dependent. </p>
<p>I do not claim a “child” because the money she gets back from her refund of withholdings is “worth” more to her. It would probably be more cost effective to claim her and give her the money but “worth” has a lot of meanings.</p>
<p>From Publication 17 on whether or not the dependent has a choice in his/her dependent status for Federal income tax purposes:</p>
<p>“You can take one exemption for yourself unless you can be claimed as a dependent by another taxpayer. If another taxpayer is entitled to claim you as a dependent, you cannot take an exemption for yourself even if the other taxpayer does not actually claim you as a dependent.”</p>
<p>So whether or not the parent claims a child as a dependent on their taxes, if the child qualifies as a dependent of someone else, he/she is not allowed to check box 6a on their 1040 for their own personal exemption.</p>
<p>dadx3 thanks for spelling it out in plain English. I should know that paragraph. I also do volunteer tax preparation for low income families. I have not encountered similar situation. In all my cases it is better for families to claim…All those earned income, child care and education credits make it very attractive to have dependent children.</p>
<p>3bm:</p>
<p>Interesting. Our S has a two part insurance; the first part is covered by his stipend. But the second he (or we) need to pay ourselves–hence our claiming him as a dependent.<br>
The same was true of his college (except that we were responsible for both parts). So we paid the college mandated part but were able to prove that he already had coverage under our health plan and therefore did not have to shell out another several hundred dollars.
I did not know that some grad stipends cover the entire health insurance! Very generous.</p>
<p>Yes. It was a big relief because our health insurance stopped covering them the day they graduated from undergrad. And I do mean that day.</p>
<p>Oops. I take that back. One went directly to a Ph.D. program and he got his insurance through them. The second got his masters first so our insurance covered him until the year he turned 24. Luckily he got a fellowship for his last semester which included health insurance. He then went on to get his Ph.D and that included health insurance.</p>
<p>It was the oldest who had to get his own insurance on the day after he graduated from college.</p>
<p>Our S lost his coverage under H’s policy when he turned 22 in his senior year. We purchased the school insurance for him, so there won’t be a lapse. The policy runs through mid-August, by which time we hope he will be covered by his new full-time employer. I wish our state enacted a law requiring coverage under parents’ policy until “children” and young adults are married, employed full-time or turn 26 or something. There are many kids that otherwise end up without coverage, which is a big issue if they have any pre-existing health issues.</p>
<p>I guess it might be worthwhile to calculate both with S as a dependent and also as independent. I believe he earned enough to qualify as either. He did NOT live with us more than 20 days in all of 2009! Will have to ask the accountant about this. Thanks for bringing this up.</p>
<p>I am a full time college student but I still live at home. I work part time also and made around $8000 last year. Am I able to claim myself on my taxes? And am I eligible for the American Opportunity Tax Credit if I do claim myself?</p>