If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien, whether you must file a federal income tax return depends on your gross income, your filing status, your age, and whether you are a dependent. For details, see Table 1 and Table 2. You also must file if one of the situations described in Table 3 applies. The filing requirements apply even if you owe no tax.
You may have to pay a penalty if you are required to file a return but fail to do so. If you willfully fail to file a return, you may be subject to criminal prosecution.
You may have to pay a penalty if you are required to file a return but fail to do so. If you willfully fail to file a return, you may be subject to criminal prosecution.
Gross income. Gross income is all income you receive in the form of money, goods, property, and services that is not exempt from tax. If you are married and live with your spouse in a community property state, half of any income defined by state law as community income may be considered yours.
Self-employed persons. If you are self-employed in a business that provides services (where products are not a factor), your gross income from that business is the gross receipts. If you are self-employed in a business involving manufacturing, merchandising, or mining, your gross income from that business is the total sales minus the cost of goods sold. To this figure, you add any income from investments and from incidental or outside operations or sources.
You must file Form 1040 if you owe any self-employment tax.
Filing status. Your filing status generally depends on whether you are single or married. In some cases, it depends on other factors as well. Whether you are single or married is determined as of the last day of your tax year, which is December 31 for most taxpayers.
Age. Age is a factor in determining if you must file a return only if you are 65 or older at the end of your tax year. For 2010, you are 65 or older if you were born before January 2, 1946.
You must file a return if your gross income for the year was at least the amount shown on the appropriate line in Table 1. Dependents should see Table 2 instead.
| If your parent (or someone else) can claim you as a dependent, use this table to see if you must file a return. | |
| In this table, unearned income includes taxable interest, ordinary dividends, and capital gain distributions. It also includes unemployment compensation, taxable social security benefits, pensions, annuities, and distributions of unearned income from a trust. Earned income includes salaries, wages, tips, professional fees, and taxable scholarship and fellowship grants. Gross income is the total of your unearned and earned income. | |
Caution.If your gross income was $3,650 or more, you usually cannot be claimed as a dependent unless you are a qualifying child. | |
Single dependents— If you were NOT either age 65 or older or blind. | |
| □ | You must file a return if any of the following apply.
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| If you were either age 65 or older or blind. | |
| □ | You must file a return if any of the following apply.
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| Married dependents—If you were NOT either age 65 or older or blind. | |
| □ | You must file a return if any of the following apply.
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| If you were either age 65 or older or blind. | |
| □ | You must file a return if any of the following apply.
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For purposes of determining whether you must file a return, you must include in your gross income all of the income you earned or received abroad, including any income you can exclude under the foreign earned income exclusion.
Generally, if you are a U.S. citizen and a bona fide resident of Puerto Rico, you must file a U.S. income tax return if you meet the income requirements. This is in addition to any legal requirement you may have to file an income tax return with Puerto Rico.
If you are a bona fide resident of Puerto Rico for the whole year, your U.S. gross income does not include income from sources within Puerto Rico. However, include in your U.S. gross income any income you received for your services as an employee of the United States or any U.S. agency. If you receive income from Puerto Rican sources that is not subject to U.S. tax, you must reduce your standard deduction, which reduces the amount of income you can have before you must file a U.S. income tax return.
If you are a bona fide resident of Puerto Rico for the whole year, your U.S. gross income does not include income from sources within Puerto Rico. However, include in your U.S. gross income any income you received for your services as an employee of the United States or any U.S. agency. If you receive income from Puerto Rican sources that is not subject to U.S. tax, you must reduce your standard deduction, which reduces the amount of income you can have before you must file a U.S. income tax return.
If you had income from Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, special rules may apply when determining whether you must file a U.S. federal income tax return. In addition, you may have to file a return with the individual possession government.
A person who is a dependent may still have to file a return. This depends on the amount of the dependent's earned income, unearned income, and gross income. For details, see Table 2. A dependent may also have to file if one of the situations described in Table 3 applies.
Responsibility of parent. If a dependent child who must file an income tax return cannot file it for any reason, such as age, a parent, guardian, or other legally responsible person must file it for the child. If the child cannot sign the return, the parent or guardian must sign the child's name followed by the words “By (your signature), parent for minor child.”
Earned income. This is salaries, wages, professional fees, and other amounts received as pay for work you actually perform. Earned income (only for purposes of filing requirements and the standard deduction) also includes any part of a scholarship that you must include in your gross income.
Child's earnings. Amounts a child earns by performing services are his or her gross income. This is true even if under local law the child's parents have the right to the earnings and may actually have received them. If the child does not pay the tax due on this income, the parent is liable for the tax.
Unearned income. This is income such as interest, dividends, and capital gains. Trust distributions of interest, dividends, capital gains, and survivor annuities are considered unearned income also.
Election to report child's unearned income on parent's return. You may be able to include your child's interest and dividend income on your tax return. If you choose to do this, your child will not have to file a return. However, all of the following conditions must be met.
- Your child was under age 19 (or under age 24 if a full-time student). (A child born on January 1, 1992, is considered to be age 19 at the end of 2010; you cannot make the election for this child unless the child was a full-time student. Similarly, a child born on January 1, 1987, is considered to be age 24 at the end of 2010; you cannot make the election for this child.)
- Your child had gross income only from interest and dividends (including capital gain distributions and Alaska Permanent Fund dividends).
- The interest and dividend income was less than $9,500.
- Your child is required to file a return for 2010 unless you make this election.
- Your child does not file a joint return for 2010.
- No estimated tax payment was made for 2010 and no 2009 overpayment was applied to 2010 under your child's name and social security number.
- No federal income tax was withheld from your child's income under the backup withholding rules.
- You are the parent whose return must be used when making the election to report your child's unearned income.
You may have to file a tax return even if your gross income is less than the amount shown in Table 1 or Table 2 for your filing status. See Table 3 for those other situations when you must file.
| If any of the four conditions listed below applied to you for 2010, you must file a return. | ||
| 1. | You owe any special taxes, including any of the following. | |
| a. | Alternative minimum tax. (See the Form 1040 instructions for line 45.) | |
| b. | Additional tax on a qualified plan, including an individual retirement arrangement (IRA), or other tax-favored account. (See Publication 590, Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs), and Publication 969, Health Savings Accounts and Other Tax-Favored Health Plans.) But if you are filing a return only because you owe this tax, you can file Form 5329 by itself. | |
| c. | Social security or Medicare tax on tips you did not report to your employer (see Publication 531, Reporting Tip Income) or on wages you received from an employer who did not withhold these taxes (see Form 8919). | |
| d. | Write-in taxes, including uncollected social security, Medicare, or railroad retirement tax on tips you reported to your employer or on group-term life insurance and additional tax on health savings accounts. (See Publication 531, Publication 969, and the Form 1040 instructions for line 60.) | |
| e. | Household employment taxes. But if you are filing a return only because you owe these taxes, you can file Schedule H by itself. | |
| f. | Recapture taxes. (See the Form 1040 instructions for lines 44 and 60.) | |
| 2. | You received any advance earned income credit (EIC) payments from your employer. These payments should be shown in box 9 of your Form W-2. (See Publication 596, Earned Income Credit (EIC).) | |
| 3. | You had net earnings from self-employment of at least $400. (See Schedule SE (Form 1040) and its instructions.) | |
| 4. | You had wages of $108.28 or more from a church or qualified church-controlled organization that is exempt from employer social security and Medicare taxes. (See Schedule SE (Form 1040) and its instructions.) | |
