<p>The colleges are not going to turn you in to the IRS.</p>
<p>But for your reference, here is the link from the IRS website about income cut-offs for dependents: [Publication</a> 929 (2012), Tax Rules for Children and Dependents](<a href=“Publication 929 (2021), Tax Rules for Children and Dependents | Internal Revenue Service”>Publication 929 (2021), Tax Rules for Children and Dependents | Internal Revenue Service)</p>
<p>It looks like you are in the clear if you earned less than $5950 in 2012.</p>
<p>Filing income taxes is not as hard as people make it out to be, so if your income for 2013 is more than the cut-off, just do it.</p>
<p>By the way, FAFSA will attribute 20% of that $3,000 in your savings account toward your EFC if your family doesn’t have an automatic Zero EFC. You may want to move it to an account where one of your parents is the person whose SSN is the one on the account.</p>