I am not claiming my 20 year old income earning daughter as a dependent, why are full time students earning income from w-2 wages not allowed to apply for EITC?

[VolvoGirl]

Sorry, you said 1,400 which is also happens to be the Stimulus payment.

[questioning77]

No worries, I actually went in and checked just now to see exactly how her return would change.  

when I say "No" to this question: Were you a full-time student for at least 5 months in 2021?

It increases her federal return by $1442 and her state return by $130

You are right if it were chump change, maybe I wouldn't care so much.. but that is a lot for a 20 year old. It also just doesn't make sense that a part-time student would be eligible for EIC when a full-time student is not... that just bothers me. I don't do well with things that don't make sense 😄

[xmasbaby0]

The other part of this----if her potential EIC is $1404---then she earned only a little over $9000 in 2021.   And by saying she cannot be a dependent that means she paid for over half her own support on $9K?   Did no one provide more support to her than that---if you use the support test?:

• What does "financially support another person" mean?

The rule is if the child can be claimed as a dependent they must say on their own return that they can be claimed---and they are supposed to say that even if the person who could claim them does not do so.

[questioning77]

@VolvoGirl  When you say "If you were a dependent on a 2020 return but filing independent for 2021 you can get it now and they don't have to pay it back.  So say NO you did not get one because you didn't one, your parents got it."

I intended on doing this for her when filing,you sure they (me) won't have to pay it back? 🙂

[questioning77]

@xmasbaby0  I agree, this is where it gets a little fuzzy but I would say she pays for more than half of her own support.  She pays for her car, gas,car insurance, and food which in reality is more than half of what the cost of a rented one-bedroom in a house full of other people would be when splitting the cost of that room with another person. She lives with a friend.