My sister just emailed me that my 16 year old nephew is being audited by the MA Dept. of Revenue for his state tax return. It was based on his $1700 income from his part time job netting him a $90 state refund.

 

Did he do his own return, and maybe claim himself as a dependent, even though his parents claimed him? I know a co-worker had issues one year with his daughter due to that.

You would think the state had bigger fish to fry, though, wouldn't you?

 

It probably cost the state $4k or more to conduct the audit on him. Awesome.

 

His mom did his return so I would assume it was done correctly.

 

In my senior year of high school, we did our own returns as part of a business class. The teacher was sure to stress that our parents would likely still want to claim us as tax deductions, therefore to check the appropriate boxes.

 

Being that I just finished school this year it was my dad's last year to claim me as dependent. We went back and forth and computed who would save more. My refund dropped by about $700 if I let him claim me as a dependent, but I figured I owed it to him after all these years and it will help him out a lot more than $700 so I let him claim me.

Wow I'm a nice guy.

 

better him than me

 

My exact reply to my sister!

I asked if we will be interviewed to summarize how much we gave him for his Bday and XMas.

 

my kid got dinged for an audit as well, but it was the feds instead.

my wife had a mutual fund set up that she had been dumping money into for years.
when they cashed it out for school it had SS# on it which he didn't file for.
they just saw the money show up with no basis and treated it all as income when in reality the damn fund lost money.