From what I’ve been reading in the last few minutes, it hardly seems worthwhile to me to think I’m going to collect a reward from the IRS, I simply don’t have enough information, but here’s what I DO know:
A 40 year old male, has NEVER worked at a real job in his life. Lives with mom and dad, in their house, drives a '97 Blazer, works on cars in his driveway (or his parent’s driveway…). When you talk to him, is always mentioning he ‘bought’ this or that for his folks - the home theater, the cd player for his mom’s car…
A complete waste of oxygen with no visible means of support. His brother (my friend) says mom pays his expenses and even bought the Blazer for him, yet he maintains that he ‘buys’ some fairly big-ticket items. He has imported taste in beer, smokes - and last I looked, cigarettes weren’t free - always has new-ish looking clothes, and there’s no way he’s doing enough brake jobs to pay for all this.
If it’s more than $10,000 a year in gifts, the mom would have to pay gift taxes on them. If he’s receiving the swell prizes for doing some kind of actual work, then it’s income and he would have to declare it as such.
Well, no, I’m pretty sure I didn’t say I was going after a reward, least of all against his mom. It does gall me that some lazy, perfectly healthy, capable freeloader is not just taking advantage of his mom, but probably making money on the side all the time and likely not even reporting it as income, even though according to him it’s sufficient to pay for some sort of lifestyle.
You’re making a lot of assumptions, maybe you’re right, which is his mother’s problem, not your’s, but maybe you’re wrong. Lots of people don’t have a traditional “job”. Maybe he’s a free lance investor of some kind, a pro gambler, or just a “horse trader”, and he could very well be paying taxes w/o your knowledge.
Some years ago my niece was dating a guy who, my brother told me, lived at home (in his early 20’s) and earned his living trading in sports cards. I prejudged the kid and critisized his slothfulness w/o thinking it through or really getting to know him. He and my neice are now married, have two great kids, a nice home, two newer cars and he is a middle management exec. w/ a major transportation company. He’s a great husband and father and I was an ass for jumping to conclusions.
I didn’t explain in full, but I believe the only assumption I might be making would be that he doesn’t file a tax return. He’s the younger brother of my best friend, I’ve known him and the entire family most of my life.
The only income that he has at all would come from the minor mechanical work he does on friend’s cars. He sleeps most days until noon, watches movies or reads all day when he’s not working on cars. The fact that he has no other income comes to me from his mom herself who was wondering to me the other night what’s going to come of him when she’s not around to ‘help’ him anymore. She’s 78, so this is a pretty good thing to start worrying about, but I think he’s the one that should start worrying, not her.
Generally speaking no, he would be a dependent. Claiming adults as dependents requires some wrangling but could be done if they are somehow disabled/unable to work for some not very visible reasons. Otherwise over 24 and not a spouse, no exemption AFAIK.
If he is doing auto repair work of any scale or frequency he would most likely owe taxes on that as well as running afoul of a huge gamut of permitting, zoning, and licencing laws WRT running such a business.
So, if I take in a homeless person and he does odd jobs around the house and I pay for his food and lodging while giving him some spending money (for smokes, beer and clothes) we’d be running afoul of the IRS?
Wierd.