u/caa63

With income from SS and only $7000 from work, you do not have a tax filing requirement.

If you had income tax withheld from your job, then you should file a return to get that withholding refunded.

Just to be clear, the $8,000 includes your online tutoring income and your other employment too? It's not just your tutoring income is it?

Assuming your total income is $8K, then for California purposes, you do not have to file a tax return unless someone else can claim you as a dependent. The filing threshold for a dependent is $5700, but it's ~$23K if you are not a dependent.

If you do not have to file a CA return, then you are not subject to the CA Shared Responsibility Penalty for not having health insurance. If you do have to file as a dependent, then the person who could claim you would be the one responsible for paying the penalty. I believe you would be exempt anyway because the first 11 months of the year you were a resident of a foreign country and the 12th month would be a short-coverage gap.

For Federal purposes, you would need to file a tax return if the tutoring income is self-employment income and it exceeds $400.

Tutoring is usually self-employment income, and he has a filing requirement if he has more than $400 of SE income.

There were a couple of responses to your previous post on this subject: https://www.reddit.com/r/tax/comments/1x5gwtc/trying_to_find_tax_help_as_a_self_employed_artist/

Sorry, my bad. This sub mostly focuses on U.S. tax issues, so if you don't provide a currency symbol or mention your country you may get bad info. You might get more relevant info on r/IndiaTax/

Yes, you can report the basis as $0 and pay tax on the entire $42,000. The IRS will be happy to take your money.

You could also ask your friend what his basis was when he gave you the crypto. Report that amount as your basis and pay tax on the difference between $42,000 and your basis.

You do not have to provide proof of basis unless the IRS asks for it. If they ask, which is extremely unlikely, you can ask your friend to provide the proof. If he can't do so, you can just tell the IRS you're unable to get the info and you're willing to pay the tax on the full amount.

Ah, with the charities as contingent beneficiaries that does make life easier.

I would definitely recommend investigating the process for rolling over the funds from the TIAA 401k to a Fidelity tIRA before the parent that owns the account passes.

Typically 401k accounts default to the spouse as beneficiary by law and you can't just name someone else like you can on an IRA. You will need to get the correct waiver form from TIAA and then the beneficiary spouse will have to sign it and have it notarized (and then TIAA, being TIAA, will lose it a couple of times and require at least one more notarized signature) before you can update the 401k beneficiaries to someone else. Even then, they are likely to balk if your PoA isn't worded exactly the way they want.

If you can get the whole thing rolled over to an IRA, then they may require the spouse's signature, but I don't believe they need a notary. Once the funds are in an IRA, then there's no limitation on who can be a beneficiary, but you do either have to have your parent set them up or you need a PoA that allows you to make that sort of change on their accounts.

Not necessarily wrong, but you probably did more than you needed to. Sending an amended return will mean that a person looks at it and reads your explanation for why you're amending; and while they're looking at that, they might notice something else that raises questions. The risk of that is pretty low, but sending the 8606 stand-alone is more likely to avoid the issue.

OK, I see where the confusion is coming from "taxable earned income" is not really correct terminology. IRA contribution limits are just based on "compensation". You can read the IRS Pub 590-A section on "What is Compensation?" for the exact details, but basically it is earned income minus any earnings that are excluded from income.

Ah, that's not really what "community property state" means. In a community property state, of which there are nine, including Texas; all of the income you or your spouse receive belongs equally to both of you and everything you buy with that joint income also belongs equally to both of you.

If you were to file your taxes as Married Filing Separately, then each of you would have to report half of the total income that your household brings in on your own tax returns. You also lose access to several tax credits and things like the ability to contribute to Roth IRAs. Unless you are about to divorce and are trying to separate your finances, you should file jointly.

For this year, when you only work 10 weeks at the part-time job, you are going to make $3600 and that will increase your tax by about $430 (I am assuming you worked at the full-time job all year).

If you just check Single on the W-4 for that job, the employer will withhold about $50 between now and the end of the year. If you check multiple jobs, they'll withhold about $225. So either way, you need some extra withholding to get up to $430. You can get there by checking multiple jobs and putting $41 on line 4c. Or you can just save the money and pay it when you do your taxes next spring.

Checking multiple jobs at your full-time job will withhold about $350 more this year, so that plus multiple jobs on the part-time job would put you over what you need.

He says he lives in Texas, so yes to the community property state.

The instructions you quoted in your post said to file 1040-X if the return was incorrect, so I would say you do need to do that. The income you reported would also be incorrect because there should be an amount in box 1 of that 1099-R as well as the withholding in box 4.

$700 for Fed and $200 for CA are actually about right for a dependent with $23K of income as long as the Kiddie tax is $0. If he weren't a dependent he'd actually get a small CA refund due to Cal EITC.

Did you fill out Form 8615 on the Federal return? Your scholarship income is taxed at your parents' rate. $700 in tax could be correct if your parents don't file a tax return or if they have very low income, but if they are supporting themselves, it's likely that you will owe more tax once you include that form.

Likewise, California also requires Form 3800 for children in this situation and that will raise your CA tax over $200. You definitely should not be subject to AMT. I think you may have answered some questions incorrectly in your software if it's not inserting the Kiddie tax forms and it's calculating CA AMT for you.

You also should talk to your parents about whether they can claim the American Opportunity Tax Credit for you. If they are eligible for that, then you would report ~$25K as taxable scholarship income and they would report $4K as qualified education expenses on their own return. That could get them up to $2500 back, which is much more than you'd have to pay in tax by adding $4K to your own income.

I believe the 8615 is required, because it's unlikely that you provided more than half your support on $9500 of earned income.

I don't know of any tax software that can handle the case where Form 8615 is required but the parents don't have SSNs, and I don't think the IRS will accept an e-filed tax return in this situation either. You will have to print out and mail in your tax return.

You can get the return to print by putting in a made-up SSN for your father on the 8615. Where it asks about his AGI and tax, enter $0. When you finish the return print it out and also print out a blank 8615 from the irs.gov website. Copy the numbers from the 8615 that your software produced to the blank one you printed out, replacing the fake SSN with "NRA", which stands for non-resident alien. Then insert that modified form back into the return in the correct spot in the return packet. Staple a copy of your W-2 to the front page of the 1040 where indicated, then mail the return to the correct address for your state, which can also be found at irs.gov if your software doesn't give it to you.

Earned income is on line 1. Line 1z has the total. You can't use Line 15 because that includes lots of items that are not compensation.

Is your employer withholding Federal Income Tax? On your pay stubs, this might show as FIT. You should also have income tax withheld for NY State and probably NYC.

When you receive your W-2 next year, you will use the information on it to file a tax return. You may also have other tax documents such as a 1099-INT if you receive interest on a bank account, or a 1098 if you are paying off student loans, or a 1098-T if you were a student for part of the year. You can use a free online service such as FreeTaxUSA.com which will guide you through entering the numbers in the correct places, or you could go in person to a VITA site and get free tax help there. If you go and have someone else do your taxes, bring all your documents printed out on paper and your Social Security Card.

One other thing you'll need to know before filing your tax return is whether anyone else is claiming you as a dependent. If you will be under age 23 at the end of 2026 and you lived with your parents (or were away at school) for more than half of this year, then it's likely they can claim you as a dependent. If they do, it doesn't change the amount of tax you'll pay, but you will need to check the box on your own tax return that says someone else can claim you as a dependent.

Your refund will be sent to NFCU. You already sent your return to the IRS. Lots of people get the terminology mixed up, you are not the only one to make this error.

As to your question, it depends entirely on how NFCU handles payments to closed accounts, so you'll have to ask them. The IRS has no control over what happens to a tax refund after they send it to the taxpayer's bank.

The IRS is saying that whatever they have in their records for 1099-Rs doesn't match what you put on your tax return. You and your husband should both create accounts at irs.gov, login and download your Wage and Income Transcripts. That will show you whatever the IRS has on record.

Look to see if there are multiple 1099-Rs in those transcripts. Maybe there's a second one that you didn't receive. Or maybe the one you have was corrected later and you never got that copy. Or maybe the custodian never submitted it to the IRS at all, so you won't see anything in the transcript.

If everything matches, just make a copy of the 1099-R you have and send it in according to the instructions you received. They might have you upload it or they may have given you a cover sheet and mailing address to use.

If these were qualified distributions, they do not change the amount of tax that was due.

The steps I would take are:

1. Create an account at irs.gov, login and check to see if there are any notices or letters that you did not receive in the mail. The notice should be under the person whose SSN is on the 1099-SA, but if you are married, also check the spouse's account.
2. Assuming no notices or letters were issued, I would not send anything to the IRS at this time. It's not very likely that they're going to send you anything if they haven't already done so.
3. Keep the 1099-SA with your other tax paperwork and maybe write a brief note to remind yourself of what happened, just in case you do get a letter next year. If that happens, your response should depend on what the letter says to do. You may need to fill out and send in an 8889 to show that these were qualified distributions because the IRS will default to assuming they're non-qualified, but I wouldn't expect them to ask for an amended return.

As long as bonus was treated as taxable income in a prior year, which it was if it was included in box 1 of the W-2, then there should be no legal question. Repayment of signing bonuses comes up quite frequently here, and many people have been advised to follow the instructions in Pub 525. As far as I know, nobody's come back and said the IRS even questioned their claim, much less disallowed it. Your friend should obviously save whatever documentation they have that shows they did the repayment and the reason for it, just in case the IRS does ask.

You can get free tax preparation help from a VITA or AARP Tax-Aide site next year. Here's the info on how to find a site near you: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/free-tax-return-preparation-for-qualifying-taxpayers If you search now, you are unlikely to find anything because most sites are only open from February through mid-April.

These sites can help you file your income tax returns with the IRS and your state. They cannot help you pay sales tax, so you need to research that separately and find out if you should be collecting and remitting it in your state.

You do not need to find someone who's experienced working with artists. Your art sales are just like any other business when it comes to taxes. Before anyone can do your tax return you need to have a list of all your income and a separate list of all your expenses, so you should gather that information and organize it before you go and get help filing your return. Your expenses might be things like rent for a spot at a fair, shipping costs, consumable supplies used to create your art, mileage to wherever you send shipments from and to the fairs, etc.

Section 1341 applies. See IRS Pub 525 section on "Repayments" for instructions on calculating the credit or deduction.