Hi, first time poster here, so lmk if I need to add anything.
I am 20 yrs old, a full-time college student, and currently living at home with my mom in PA. At the beginning of this school year, I took out 6,000 in loans, and my mom took out 2,000 so I could pay for school. The rest of it was paid through Fafsa stuff.
The actual question was that I have a job for the summer, and I'm expecting to make about 4,800-5,000 dollars before school starts back up. However, my mom is concerned that if I make too much money, she can't claim me as a dependent. We have been poor my whole life, and my mom kind of depends on the refund at the end of the year. Is there an upper limit to how much I can make before I'm not considered a dependant? I saw somewhere that it only matters that she provides more than 50% of my support. The thing is, I want to get a car. I know tho that I will be responsible for payments and gas stuff, so does that count as supporting myself? Do we need to keep track of how much she spends on me? Idk if it is actually 50% cuz I always feel bad for asking her to get me stuff.
Thx so much to anyone who responds!
Posted by Eastern_Replacement9
2 Comments
Since you’re a full time student and not providing more than half of your own support, there’s no income limit for an otherwise qualifying child. You would be required to file a tax return (and there’s a box you can check to say “I’m being claimed by someone else”) if you make more than $15,750.
> However, my mom is concerned that if I make too much money, she can’t claim me as a dependent.
As long as you aren’t providing more than half your own financial support for the year, she can still claim you as a dependent. Your actual *income* is irrelevant; what matters is what you *spend*. And *she* doesn’t have to provide more than half your support; you just can’t provide more than half your own support.
This is all because you are (if you meet that requirement) a Qualifying Child dependent, because you’re under age 24 and a full-time student. If you were age 24 or older, or if you weren’t a full-time student for at least five months of the year, *then* there would be a hard income limit & she would have to provide more than half your financial support for the year, as you’d be using the Qualifying Relative dependent rules.
Note that in either case, your scholarships are excluded from the support calculations, but your student loans are included. So that $6000 loan in your name counts as you providing $6000 of your own support, and the $2000 loan she took out in her name counts as her providing $2000 of your support.