My son has a brokerage acct that shows a cap. loss. He was 18 as of 12/31/16. i believe my husband and i are prohibited from claiming his portfolio income/losses on

[ctietjen1]

I don't believe we can file a 8814 because my son has cap, losses in his portfolio acct.   She he file his own separate return and show all the unearned income (in addn to his W-2)?

[ChristinaS · Accepted solution]

You cannot file Form 8814 on your return for a few reasons-

#1. Your son has a W2. You can only choose to file Form 8814 when the child has interest, dividends, and/or capital gains distributions and nothing else. Since he is filing his own return because of a W2, you cannot report just a portion of his income on yours.

He reports everything.

#2. Sales of securities are not eligible for Form 8814. Only interest, dividends, and capital gains distributions are. The latter is reported on Form 1099-DIV, and couldn't be a loss.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8814.pdf