My son is a college student. He made $10,000 in unearned income in the stock market and so we are filing a separate return for him. On my return it says he is "not qualified for child tax credit". It doesn't seem that we are getting any benefit from claiming him as a dependent. Would it be better to not claim him as a dependent at all on our tax return? When I change my son's TT return to "someone can claim me as a dependent in 2020" but "no one will claim me as a dependent in 2020", he owes much less taxes. Is it ok to not claim my son as a dependent even though he technically is a dependent? Thank you in advance.
@taxesx4 wrote:
My son is a college student. He made $10,000 in unearned income in the stock market and so we are filing a separate return for him. On my return it says he is "not qualified for child tax credit". It doesn't seem that we are getting any benefit from claiming him as a dependent. Would it be better to not claim him as a dependent at all on our tax return? When I change my son's TT return to "someone can claim me as a dependent in 2020" but "no one will claim me as a dependent in 2020", he owes much less taxes. Is it ok to not claim my son as a dependent even though he technically is a dependent? Thank you in advance.
Yes he is your dependent. You answered a question wrong. Delete the dependent and re-enter. Be sure to say that he did not support *himself*. The question is not if you supported him.
If he *can* be a dependent then he cannot claim himself, the tax law does not allow that.
Nothing requires a parent to claim a dependent, but if they CAN claim the dependent then the person cannot claim them-self - tax law does not allow that. That is why there are two questions "CAN you be claimed by another tax payer?, and WERE you claimed?
Yes to the first means you cannot claim yourself, no to the second might allow you to claim certain educational credits that usually only the person claiming you could claim.
Unless your income level is too high you would get $500 in credit for other dependents. If he is eligible for education credit that may explain why he does better if you don’t claim him but unless your income is too high you would be better off claiming that credit. In either case you will run into the Kiddie Tax.
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/income/help/what-is-the-kiddie-tax/00/25913/amp