You know you can ask your children on your tax return. What if you support as Mom and Dad?
If you pay part or all of the costs of your parents, you may be eligible for dependency exemptions for them, as you do for your children.
Advantages to claim your parents as dependents
It is worth taking the time to see if your parent (or other relative) meets the qualifications your load.
Each dependency exemption decreases taxable income of $ 3,00.
This does not only tax benefit you can receive. If your parent is considered a dependent, you may also be able to deduct certain expenses you pay on behalf of your parents, such as medical expenses that exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income.
The medical expenses you pay for yourself, your spouse and your dependents must not exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income if you or your spouse are 65 or more (otherwise it is 10% of your AGI).
If you pay someone to care for your parent while you work, the fees you pay may also qualify for the children and dependents of credit .
Tests to determine whether a parent is a "qualifying relative"
The IRS uses different sets of rules to determine whether the children and the "Eligible parents" are your responsibility.
Your parent or other relative must meet all four of the tests to be a relative qualification:
- The person can not be your child eligible. (Your children qualify as dependents under different rules.)
- The person may be your father, mother, grandparent, stepparent, niece, nephew, aunt or uncle. The person may even be a brother-son, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, stepmother, brother or sister-brother-in-law.
- He or she must have less than $ 3,00 in taxable income (for 2013). social security benefits and other tax-free income does not count for this purpose, but interest, dividends and taxable pensions are.
- You must provide more than half of their support. Support includes the things you buy for your parent, but also includes its share of groceries, gas, utilities, and rent.
Do not include money or the report was received but not spent on support.
Compare the amount of support you provided with the total amount of support from all sources to determine whether you have provided more than half of the person's support.
If a person is not your parent in the second test, he or she may still qualify if the person lived with you all year.
However, your qualifying relative does not live with you to be your responsibility. You can support your mother, for example, in his own house, the house of your brother, or an assisted living home.
Do you think that adult children should support their parents, if any, in their old age?
photo credit: eljoja via photopin cc
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