The IRS has (at last!) updated its Form 8615 form and instructions for 2018, but TurboTax unfortunately has not. Apparently therefore we are left to calculate the "worksheet" ourselves.
(I downloaded the PDFs from irs.gov yesterday. The instructions booklet is marked "Rev. February 2020".)
I am astonished that the IRS and TurboTax and indeed the Wall Street Journal could be so behind the curve on this.
For thousands of college students and "Gold Star" children, the 2019 reversal of the 2017 Kiddie Tax is an incredible boon -- or, more accurately, an overdue relief from injustice. Taxed at trust rates, they owed for 2018 and would have owed for 2019 an obscene portion of their "unearned" income. (For the young woman whose taxes I am doing, the hit was over $5000 last year, amounting to 18 percent of her income. Taxed at her parents' rates, it should be under $300.)
