<p>Hi, silly question but D started working last year and we are wondering, do we include her income on our 1040 taxes? We claim her as a dependent. Thanks!</p>
<p>No, she has to file her own return for earned income if she has enough to be required to file. Any of the 1040 instructions have a section called ‘who must file’. You have to look at the part about a dependent who can be claimed on someone else’s return and she has to mark that box on her return if required to file.</p>
<p>NO NO NO. You do not put your daughters income on YOUR taxes. If she had any withholding, she should file her OWN return (which she can do even when you declare her as a dependent). She can go to the IRS website, look for free file and file.</p>
<p>^^^ What thumper1 said. I had D do this last year (when she was still in high school). Anyone earning a paycheck is old enough to be learning how to file their own income tax return.</p>
<p>D had a bit of withholding (less than $100) from a summer job. She reported that none of the other kids at school who had worked in the same summer job were filing income tax. This seemed absurd to me. Doubtless they did not have enough income to be required to file (the criterion mentioned by annoyingdad), but why wouldn’t they want to get the withholding back? (I don’t think they filled out W-4s).</p>
<p>When dependent kids file income tax, they must check the box that says they’re the dependent of someone else (i.e. you, the parent(s)).</p>
<p>Your daughter can file a 1040-EZ. That already has the formula on it to follow for people who are claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax forms.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone! D has an interview on Friday for HEOP and has to bring a lot of records, including our taxes. You all confirmed what we thought but we weren’t sure.</p>
<p>I was kind of stressed about it – our tax preparer is usually unavailable for questions and it sets us back in terms of time (which we don’t have this year).</p>
<p>So again, THANK YOU!</p>
<p>If your D didn’t have withholding taken from her paychecks, and if she didn’t make enough money to file (something in the $5000 range, I think), then she doesn’t have to file. If she had withholding, but didn’t make enough money to file, she would file only to get the withholding back.</p>