Anyone have a tax program that supports this form? Last year both turbotax and taxact did, but this year I can’t find any free or even low cost programs to support it. I tried Credit Karma but it wasn’t asking the right questions and when I looked at the draft form it didn’t treat the overage as a scholarship (the amount wasn’t on line 7 with the SCH on it) and it is just treating it all as income, with no $1050 exemption and no treatment of the amounts over $2100 at the parent’s rate.
I used hrblock downloadable software to complete returns for our family. It walked me through the kiddie tax questions and forms, without any big issues. I found an online coupon code and paid around $40.
https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp gets you your choice of free programs that most students qualify for. Choosing TaxAct, my D got federal and two states free including kiddie tax. TaxAct is one of the easiest programs to plug in different amounts of grants to pay taxes on, to find the sweet spot for AOTC (amounts over and above what is already taxable, that is).
When you use these freefile programs, you have to enter through irs.gov every time you log back in, to make sure you’re always in the free program.
I upgraded to TaxAct basic and it let me do what I wanted to do (try out different amounts to get some AOTC for me without her paying too much) I have to toggle back and forth with mine, and I was ready to pay the $7.50 and $8 for state, and now it seems to have lost all the info I put in. If I can’t find it and have to start over, I’ll go through the IRS site. Thanks.
I’ve used TurboTax and Tax Act for free for the last 3 years and it never charged me. This year almost all the free editions won’t issue the 8615. The one of our three returns that I can use Credit Karma for, with free state return? I can’t file hers yet because of a bad W2.
If Taxact Basic won’t work for you, try it once signing in with existing username/password through the TT Freedom Edition website.
It should work. At least I hope so.
I didn’t need to do form 8615 this year because the school posted her spring semester scholarship in January so she just reported the fall semester scholarship on her 2017 return.
But I have used TT Freedom Edition for years for us, until we earned too much, and then for our kids.
It was the only TT program that didn’t try to upgrade me to a more expensive version when we had a 1040 to file.
Okay, since I had to reenter anyway I went for the TurboTax Freedom. Worked fine EXCEPT it now wants to give my DD the AOTC (up to the amount of tax she owes). I want to take the AOTC. I’ve double checked all the entries. I have her checked as a student, her age comes up as 21, single, she can be claimed by someone else. I’ve re-entered everything. It correctly asked for my info and generated a 8615.
Why is it doing this? I seem to remember it doing this last year too and I just changed programs (to TaxAct, which wants me to pay for the form this year and now out of principle I just won’t). I think it is wrong. I think she’s supposed to pay that $488 and not get a refund. Everything looks right, the state tax came out right (same as TaxAct). This is the only thing that is different.
Do you have your tax returns from last year? If so, then you should be able to do everything yourself this year just with the new numbers. Use the Free Fillable Forms link at the IRS website. Most of the forms do link to each other, and when they don’t you just copy the number onto the correct line yourself. Not as user friendly as TurboTax, but less likely to try to give the wong person the AOTC.
The first question was ‘Can you (daughter) be claimed on someone else’s return?’ and I clicked Yes. The next question was ‘And will that person claim you?’ and I guess it was automatically set to ‘no’ (or somehow the radio button was changed. On the ‘review’ page, it listed her name, SSN and that she COULD be claimed by someone else, but nothing about that she WILL be claimed by another.