AboutCarole Dunton Expertise Preparation of individual income tax returns including social security, pensions, lump sum distributions, sale of personal residence, stock and mutual fund sales, distributions from individual retirement accounts, moving expenses and itemized deductions.
General knowledge of schedule C for small sole proprietorships.
No experience in corporate, estate, partnership or large business returns.
Experience 8 years as tax preparer for major national firm.
Expert: Carole Dunton Date: 7/7/2008 Subject: Full time college student and taxes
Question Hello,
I am 18 and have made about $6000 at a part time job so far, and will have made around, $8000 or more by the time I have to file taxes this year. Of that, so far $1100 has gone to various federal and NY city/state taxes so far. My parents claim me as a dependant.
My question is, this year I will be a fulltime college student. Someone had mentioned to me that fulltime students get all their tax money back. Is there any validity to this claim? Do fulltime students get any kind of tax breaks whatsoever?
Answer Hi,
The parents of full time students can claim their children as dependents unless the student pays more than half of his/her own support. Also the parents can get a tax credit for tuition paid for their dependent child.
The student dependent can file a tax return but cannot claim his/her own exemption. They do have a standard deduction ($5,350 for 2007). The standard deduction is the amount on which the student dependent does not pay income tax.
The income you anticipate for the year will be more than your standard deduction so you will have taxable income. On $8,000 total income the taxable income would be about $2,650. The Federal income tax on that would be about $265. Any Federal income withheld in excess of that amount would be refunded. It works about the same way with state income tax except state tax rates are lower.
