Congratulations! My D’s Stanford education has opened doors, so I am confident you will continue to be pleased and proud!
Have any of you with 2020 college grads tackled the “are they a dependent for 2020 tax filing?” yet?
My D lives at home (thank you Covid) but even throughout college paid for her personal expenses. She writes me a hefty check every month for reimbursement for anything charged on our joint credit card and for her car payment, insurance, etc. TBH, we thought she’d have moved out and we would have transferred all this to her accounts at that time. but since she’s still basically working the same as she has all along, and still living here, we just never changed the automatic payments from my checking accounts.
Her car was purchased (in both our names) with the intention of her leaving home with it but now I drive it more than she does, but she’s paying the full payment, made the $5K down payment, etc.
Anyway, in my opinion, she has paid at least 1/2 her support and I have heard that perhaps she will be eligible to receive stimulus payments not previously received. I do want to be careful and have proper documentation etc. Looking at her checks to me, she’s paid me over $13K in 2020 and I’m tackling the questions like “what is fair rent for our family home” etc.
Anybody know where there is really good / detailed info on all this? Since D’s tuition in 2020 was about $8 K (for her last semester - wow! did her tuition costs rise over the 4 years) it is making the numbers (using rough estimates) very close. So, obviously I’m going to have to nitpick and find as many actual #s as I can. Unfortunately, I’m not the type that kept a detailed / strict budget and tracked every grocery purchase for 2020.
Technically, D is self employed (with 2 businesses) and we struggled our way through her tax returns last year. Think we may need significant help this year. Unfortunately, her income is extremely low compared to what it should have been (again - thank you Covid). So, I’m trying to help however I can.
I really feel like these grads got screwed over all the way around in this situation. I know my D didn’t qualify for unemployment (underemployment) and I feel that she should have, no graduation, no stimulus, no full-time job (her industry being one of most hard-hit).
Ugh. Having a pity party over here today!! lol
PS: I already posted this elsewhere and then found this thread with a little more participation. Figured many of us are in the same boat.
Maybe you should start a new thread? I know there are several tax gurus on here. Hopefully, they can help.
I was planning on letting my 2020 college grad be independent. His taxes were always so much more complex than mine. I did mine with paper/pen/calculator until he went to college. He does a lot of investments and had self employment until this year. He also could use the $$$ more than I could at this point. He can do his own taxes now! (Evil laughter though really he will be just fine.)
But mine moved into his own apartment in his new city in July. He was on our health insurance until he started working in August, but we transferred the car and he started that insurance in June. And then while I did pay for his apartment and most food (at college), he did pay for fun food and clothes, gas, incidentals, etc. But then I also just read that they had to be in school full time for 5 months. His school has a weird system. The winter semester ends in April and they have a 1 month Spring term. He didn’t need the credits, so he didn’t attend in May. So I think he would have to be considered independent in our case anyway.