Children

[Corduroy Frog]

"Oh by the way, can you quickly do my kid's taxes, he doesn't have much??", as the client expects a simple return that won't take over 5 minutes.

Right.

You might get a kid of 14 who has unearned income over $1400.  Or a kid whose been getting child tax credit for years, but has just turned 17.  Or an 18 yearold whose W-2 is so high his parents can't claim him.  Or a college student with educational credits who may or may not be able claim him, assuming his parents cannot (which brings on another question).

Assuming a child's return has no issues may be one of the most underappreciated things we run into.

 

 

[Patrick Michael]

I always tell the parent to send me the information, and I'll take a look.  I don't mind doing the kids' return, but I also want to ensure I'm charging the right amount.   If it's only a couple of W-2's I charge $25 for the dependent returns.  Anything more and the cost goes up.  I find it much easier to prepare the return than fix it later when the child didn't check the "Dependent of Another" box.  I have also found over the years that most of these kids stay with me once they are out of school and working full time, and I get to charge them full price.

[mcb39]

I don't charge for dependent children of my clients unless it is an extraordinary circumstance.  If they are students, I want to keep them with the parents so that they don't rob the parents of an exemption.  As Patrick Michael said, they almost always stay on as a client once they are in the workforce.  Also, I don't charge for active military filers.  These are my personal policies that have reaped rewards over the years.

[Sara EA]

Oftentimes the child is a student somewhere who has income in three states!  Our fee for dependent returns is $50, like Patrick trying to avoid them claiming themselves and leaving us with a mess to clean up.  More if the child has investments, plays with cryptocurrency, or has income in another state.

[Catherine]

I also charge $25 - $50 for dependent returns, with the option I keep for myself to give them a courtesy discount down to $5 or $10 or even $0 (say if the kid had one W-2 and $27 in withheld tax). But I want to see it before I price-quote, and anything that involves credits, kiddie tax, and multi-state issues is not done for a measley $50.

[mcb39]

4 hours ago, Catherine said:

I also charge $25 - $50 for dependent returns, with the option I keep for myself to give them a courtesy discount down to $5 or $10 or even $0 (say if the kid had one W-2 and $27 in withheld tax). But I want to see it before I price-quote, and anything that involves credits, kiddie tax, and multi-state issues is not done for a measley $50.

Absolutely, but most of the credits go to the parents and kiddie tax gets billed to the person who is trying to avoid CG or Interest Income for themselves.

[Jim Oh Bkkr]

16 hours ago, Catherine said:

say if the kid had one W-2 and $27 in withheld tax

If they listen to me.  If the come in next year with the same thing, they pay the $50 fee.  Being near a border, the OOS withholding is the bigger problem (though KY [usually] is a much higher taxed state, they generally get twice the refund from KY than they pay OH).