Kayla didn’t have a job in 2018, so she didn’t file a 2018 tax return. In 2019, she worked at Starbucks, and received a W-2. But she still hasn’t filed a tax return this year. I was looking at her W-2 (she had it out to use when applying for her REAL ID a couple of weeks ago), and told her that she was leaving a few hundred bucks on the table if she didn’t file, so she agreed to file later today.
I just filed a couple of weeks ago, myself, and claimed her as a dependent (this is the last time I’ll be able to do this, as she turned 24 seven weeks ago). I did NOT receive money to account for her when I got my stimulus payment a few weeks ago.
The question is: when she files, under normal circumstances, the IRS would suddenly notice her, and send her a stimulus payment (I presume). Should my presumption be adjusted to account for the fact that she’s checking the box that says she can be claimed on someone else’s return? That is, does that particular status affect her eligibility?
If you claim her as a dependent, she is NOT eligible for the $1,200 payment. You should receive the $500 dependent payment. But, if you only filed a couple of weeks ago, that may take a while to process.
That’s what should happened. What will happen…who knows? It’s a big, complex program.
Ah. Thanks for the heads-up. It will be a disappointment to her, but at least she’ll get her FITW returned to her.
Also, I did file with her as a dependent in 2018, and I already got $2400 for me and kaylasmom. I would have expected that if the IRS was going to include $500 for her, they would have already done it.
It’s possible that, due to her age, the IRS was waiting for you and/or her to file this year to clarify her status - she could just as well have filed on her own this year as a non-dependent, which would entitle her to the $1,200 payment. So, now that you’ve both filed, and you’ve claimed her as a dependent, you might still get the $500.
Or maybe not. It’s a big, complex program, your daughter’s situation is one where the law is not entirely clear (since her dependent status may be changing from year to another), and the IRS may have simply made a genuine screw-up.
@kaylasdad99, I apologize. enalzi is right. Dependents 17 or over do not get stimulus checks of any kind. You only get the $500 for dependents under 17, and adults who are claimed as dependents do not qualify for the $1,200. Your daughter simply isn’t eligible for the CARES Act payment based on her 2019 status.
There is an additional complication. Technically, the CARES Act payment is an advance payment of a fully refundable tax credit for the 2020 tax year. If you have not received a CARES Act payment for which you are eligible by the time you file your 2020 income tax return, you can claim the tax credit then. If your daughter files on her own in 2020 and you don’t claim her as a dependent, she might be eligible to claim the $1,200 tax credit then, but that situation is well outside my obviously limited understanding of the CARES Act.
I won’t speak for anyone else, but here’s my rationale (C&P’d from a February post in another thread):
Well, kaylasmom ’s aunt, being the second Mrs. Allan Jay Lerner, starred as the original Fiona in Brigadoon . Another of her aunts was the wife of the founder of the Sacramento Music Circus (a prestigious summer stock program), and a headliner in many of their shows. Kaylasmom has musical theatre running through her veins (if you’re not offended by such a pseudoscientific notion), and when I met her in 1977, she was determined to follow a similar career path. I was also bitten by the “Hi Diddly-Dee, an Actor’s Life For Me” bug as a lad. Neither of us went particularly far, due to both lack of support ( kaylasmom ) and lack of follow-through (me). Michaela, however, has displayed both determination and follow-through since she decided before she graduated high school that this was her calling. Denied an invitation to join the performing arts program at Marymount Manhattan in 2015, she came back to California and worked on her skills for four years in Junior College. When she was accepted into the BFA Musical Theatre program at Pace, she was told that the judges at her audition awarded her a perfect score for singing, acting, AND dance. She’s GOING to have support from me