I am asking about my 20 year old son, who for 2017 had income only in Czech Republic. Can he file US taxes using Turbo Tax or it will be difficult (he has no US W2)?

[rjs]

Is your son a U.S. citizen or resident alien? If not, why does he want to file a U.S. tax return?

If he is a U.S. citizen or resident alien, he can use TurboTax. He will enter his income from the Czech Republic as foreign income. It is not difficult.

If he is not a U.S. citizen or resident alien, he cannot use TurboTax.

[frantzis4]

He is US citizen.

[frantzis4]

This came up while doing my 2017 taxes using Turbo tax. My now 20 year old son (he is US citizen, to turn 21 in April 2018) was full time student from Jan. 2017 to July 2017 (and previous years). Then he found a job in the Czech Republic (working for a Czech company) and started working there in Sept. 2017 and he is still working there. He will file for his own taxes for 2017 entering his foreign (and only) income from Sept. 2017 to Dec. 2017. Turbo tax said that I can claim him as a dependent (without asking me if he will be filing his own taxes). Can I claim him as dependent for 2017 taxes? perhaps for the months he was a full time student if that's possible? Thx

[rjs]

You can't claim a dependent for part of the year. Either he is your dependent or he isn't.
You can claim your son as a dependent if all of the following are true.
- He lived with you for more than half the year (or was temporarily away from your home while at school).
- He did not provide more than half of his own support for the year.
- He is not filing a joint tax return with his spouse (if he's married).
If he does not meet all these requirements, he might still be your dependent if his gross income for the year is less than $4,050.
(These criteria are specific to the information that you gave, and are not a complete list of the requirements for claiming someone as a dependent.)
Filing his own tax return, as long as it is not a joint return with a spouse, does not prevent you from claiming him as a dependent.

If he meets the requirements to be your dependent, he must indicate on his own tax return that someone else CAN claim him as a dependent, whether or not you actually claim him.

[rjs]

You can see a good summary of the requirements for someone to be claimed as a dependent in Table 5 at the following link. The details of each requirement are explained in the text below the table. This is from IRS Publication 501.

<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.irs.gov/publications/p501#en_US_2017_publink1000196863">https://www.irs.gov/publications...>

[rjs · Accepted solution]

Since your son is a U.S. citizen, he can use TurboTax to file his tax return. It will not be difficult. You didn't say what kind of income he had, but since you mentioned not having a W-2, I assume it was income from working. He will enter his income as foreign earned income. Here's how to enter foreign earned income in TurboTax.

• In the Find box at the top right, enter "foreign earned income" (without the quotes).
• In the box that appears, click the link that says "Jump to foreign earned income."
• When it asks what form your foreign income was reported on, select "A statement from my foreign employer (could be cash)."