My son, claimed as my dependent, filed his own return. When asked for his MAGI (found on his 1040 by adding line 2a with line 8b) there aren't any numbers on those line?

[missieconroy]

Would that mean I don't have to include his income?

[DoninGA]

You do NOT enter a dependent's earned income from wages reported on a W-2 or their income from self-employment on your tax return.  The dependent can file their own tax return and indicate on their return that they can be claimed as a dependent.

[SweetieJean]

Why does he need his MAGI?  Or was it the 2019 AGI that's needed to efile 2020?

What type of 2020 income did he have?

[missieconroy]

This is from the health care section with form 1095A.  I'm asked if I have a dependant who filed a separate return, when I check yes it then asks me for his MAGI.  The instructions for finding his MAGI 

"To calculate your dependent child's modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), you'll need to access their completed 2020 tax return. If you have not filed your dependent child's tax return, you'll need to do that to do the calculation.

If your dependent child filed their tax return with TurboTax, they can sign into their account to access their 2020 tax return.

Your dependent child's MAGI can be calculated by adding any amount reported on Form 1040 lines 2a to the amount on line 8b. Although it's not common, if they claimed foreign earned income exclusion, housing exclusion, or housing deduction, add the amount from form 2555, lines 45 and 50, or form 2555-EZ, line 18 to the amount on line 8b. Finally, if they have received Social Security income, add the difference between lines 5a and 5b to the amount on line 8b." 

He doesn't have any amount in line 2a or 8b.

[missieconroy]

@SweetieJean 

This is from the health care section with form 1095A.  I'm asked if I have a dependant who filed a separate return, when I check yes it then asks me for his MAGI.  The instructions for finding his MAGI 

"To calculate your dependent child's modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), you'll need to access their completed 2020 tax return. If you have not filed your dependent child's tax return, you'll need to do that to do the calculation.

If your dependent child filed their tax return with TurboTax, they can sign into their account to access their 2020 tax return.

Your dependent child's MAGI can be calculated by adding any amount reported on Form 1040 lines 2a to the amount on line 8b. Although it's not common, if they claimed foreign earned income exclusion, housing exclusion, or housing deduction, add the amount from form 2555, lines 45 and 50, or form 2555-EZ, line 18 to the amount on line 8b. Finally, if they have received Social Security income, add the difference between lines 5a and 5b to the amount on line 8b." 

He doesn't have any amount in line 2a or 8b.

[gloriah5200]

If 2a and 8b are blank, then his MAGI would be 0, the addition of the two lines.

[missieconroy]

@gloriah5200 That was my assumption but I was confident that I was right.  Thanks so much!

[donnacarroll09]

I have the same question, except my daughter's 1040 does not even have a line "8a" only a line "8". does that make a difference? I'm worried about entering "0"

[MaryM428]

Take the amount on Line 11 of the 1040 and then add any of the credits listed below.  The result is the MAGI.
 

To calculate your modified adjusted gross income, take your AGI and "add-back" certain deductions. Many of these deductions are rare, so it's possible your AGI and MAGI can be identical. Different credit and deductions can have differing add-backs for your MAGI calculation. According to the IRS, your MAGI is your AGI with the addition of the appropriate deductions, potentially including:

• Student loan interest
• One-half of self-employment tax
• Qualified tuition expenses
• Tuition and fees deduction
• Passive loss or passive income
• IRA contributions
• Non-taxable social security payments
• The exclusion for income from U.S. savings bonds
• Foreign earned income exclusion
• Foreign housing exclusion or deduction
• The exclusion under 137 for adoption expenses
• Rental losses
• Any overall loss from a publicly traded partnership

[sdw10000010]

I have had this problem for the past two years----Turbo tax did not update the #s on the forms---so you can calculate this yourself---I think the tax expert at the bottom is correct----Come on Turbo tax fix this description of how to calculate dependents MAGI!

[davewn50]

Thanks @MaryM428 , this is the conclusion I came to after wasting many hours looking for answers online, at last year's taxes, and IRS instructions for form 8962.  Following the answer from the TurboTax 2020 software prompts for form 1095-A could result in significantly underreporting household MAGI as they refer only to some of the potential modifications (guessing it's often $0)  to AGI rather than providing the required MAGI value itself.  Ironically, TurboTax Premier software for 2019 had this right and caused me to question the dependent MAGI calculation this year- that and the fact that there is no line 8b on the 2020 1040 form.  It's disconcerting to me that even this late in the game, Intuit hasn't updated this bug.  

[Tileworks]

The current description is for a previous tax year and hasn't been updated. It should read "by adding line 2a to line 9". 

In the 2019 tax year, line 8b was the adjusted gross income. For 2020 however, this is line 9. TurboTax failed to update the description accordingly.