Kiddie Tax

2024-09-09 Once upon a time, parents used a strategy to save taxes on investment income by transferring their income producing assets to their children, to take advantage of their standard deduction and much lower tax brackets. To prevent this, Congress passed the so-called kiddie tax, which taxes the investment income of children exceeding a certain amount at the parents' highest tax rate and reduces the standard deduction for investment income. Any investment income exceeding the kiddie tax exemption will be taxed at the parent's tax rate instead of the child's tax rate, unless both parents are dead, in which case the child's tax rate will apply. If the child's investment income exceeds the kiddie tax standard deduction for investment income, but is ≤ kiddie tax exemption, then the child pays a tax based on his own rate, which is 10%. (Note that it could be 0% if the income comes from qualified dividends.) Likewise, the child applies his own tax rate to earned income, which the tax code defines as income earned from work.

General Requirements of the Kiddie Tax

For the tax to apply, the child must satisfy the kiddie tax age requirements at the end of the tax year. Originally, the age requirement was that the child be younger than 14, but Congress increased that limit, so any child claimed as a dependent may be subject to the kiddie tax, if they are:

• younger than 18, or
• if they did not earn more than 1/2 of their support, and they were:
  • 18, or
  • younger than 24 if the child is a full-time student, defined as attending school full-time for at least 5 months during the year

The kiddie tax may even apply to children who cannot be claimed as a dependent because either they did not live with their parents for more than 6 months or they paid more than half of their own living expenses but not from their earned income. However, the kiddie tax does not apply to children who file a joint return, who do not have to file a tax return, or if both parents are deceased by the end of the tax year.

Regarding the kiddie tax, a special birthdate rule applies to children born on January 1 that treats these children as reaching their new age on December 31 of the previous year. So, if a child turns 18 on January 1, 2019, then she is treated as being 18 for the 2018 tax year, so the kiddie rules will apply to her.

Another requirement is that the child must have had unearned income — from interest, dividends, or capital gains distributions, taxable pension payments, rents, royalties, or income from custodial accounts or property, even if the property was purchased with a child's wages or given as a gift, or any other income not earned by working — exceeding the kiddie tax exemption since the applicable parent's tax rate applies only to the amount exceeding the exemption. Unearned income also includes income from a trust unless it is a qualified disability trust. unearned income Unearned income even includes non-investment income, such as unemployment compensation, taxable social security benefits, alimony, and some taxable scholarships.

The law provides 2 methods to calculate and report the kiddie tax. One method is to report the child's income on his own return, by filing Form 8615, Tax For Certain Children Who Have Unearned Income. The other method is to include the child's income on the parents return by filing Form 8814, Parents' Election to Report Child's Interest and Dividends.

Which Parent's Tax Rate Must be Used?

However, regardless of the method used, the tax is calculated by using the tax return of the parent, custodial parent, or stepparent with the highest taxable income, which I will call, for lack of a better term, the kiddie-tax parent. If a joint return is filed, then obviously that return is used, but if the parents file separately, as many wealthy parents do, then the parents do not have a choice in which return to use:

• For married parents, whether living together or separately, or if the parents were never married but lived together all year, then the return with the greater taxable income must be used.
• If married parents are living separately and the custodial parent — which is the parent who had custody of the child for most of the year — is considered the head of the household, or the parents are divorced or legally separated, then the return of the custodial parent must be used.
• If the custodial parent has remarried, then the return with the greatest income of either the custodial parent or stepparent must be used.

The kiddie tax computation does not affect the parent's tax liability nor does it affect any income limits on deductions or credits, unless the parent chooses to report the child's investment income on her own return.

Calculating and Reporting the Child's Tax by Filing Form 8615

If the parent does not include the child's income on her own tax return, then Form 8615 must be filed for the child if at least one parent was alive at the end of the tax year and the child is required to file.

Use the following steps to calculate the kiddie tax liability of the child:

1. Determine the child's net unearned income. If it is less than the exemption, then the income is not subject to the kiddie tax.
2. Determine the allocable parental tax, which is the tax on the net unearned income subject to the parent's rate.

The child's net unearned income is calculated by subtracting the greater of the standard deduction or itemized expenses from the child's gross income.

Child's Net Unearned Income = Gross Unearned Income − (Greater of Standard Deduction or Itemized Deductions)

If the net unearned income ≤ the kiddie tax exemption, then the child's tax rate is applied to the income above the standard deduction, which is included on his own Form 1040 or 1040A.

Child's Income Subject to Child's Tax Rate = (Lesser of Net Unearned Income or Kiddie Tax Exemption) − Investment Standard Deduction

To determine the allocable parental tax, the parent with the highest taxable income must first determine her tax liability on her income. Then the parent must add the net unearned income of all her children to her own income to determine the tentative tax liability. The difference between the taxes on the 2 incomes is the allocable parental tax that must be added to any other taxes that the child may owe to determine the child's total tax liability.

Allocable Parental Tax = Tax on (Parent's Income + All Children's Net Unearned Income Subject to the Kiddie Tax) − Tax on Parent's Income

If there is more than 1 child subject to the kiddie tax, then the net investment income of each child is divided by the sum of the net investment income of all children subject to the kiddie tax to determine their proportion of the tax liability.

Net Investment Income = Investment Income − Kiddie Tax Exemption

Kiddie Tax = Net Investment Income × Parent's Highest Marginal Rate

Child's Tax = [Lesser of (Investment Income or Kiddie Tax Exemption) − Investment Standard Deduction] × 10% (maximum: could be lower with qualified dividends.)

Total Tax = Kiddie Tax + Child's Tax

Reporting the Child's Income on the Parent's Return

If the child's investment income consists of only interest and dividends, including capital distributions from mutual funds or Alaska Permanent Fund dividends, then the parent with the highest taxable income can elect to report the child's income on her own return if the child's income exceeds the investment standard deduction but less than 10 times that amount. Additional requirements are that the child was not subject to backup withholding for the tax year, and no estimated tax payments were made under the child's social security number, including overpayments from the previous year. This requirement likely results from the fact that the IRS has no provision for transferring tax payments made under one social security number to another. The qualifying parent can elect to include the child's income on his own return by attaching Form 8814, Parents' Election to Report Child's Interest and Dividends to his income tax return, and including this income on the Other Income line of the Income section of Form 1040. The calculations on Form 8814 uses the preferential tax rates for qualified dividends and long-term capital gains, if the child has any.

The main advantage to reporting the child's income on the parent's tax return is that it eliminates the need for the child to file his own return. There may also be some minor advantages for the parent, such as being able to offset more investment interest with a higher investment income, and the charitable donation ceiling may also be increased. However, there are several disadvantages to making this election:

• The parent must pay a 10% tax on the income exceeding the investment standard deduction but ≤ kiddie tax exemption, even if the 0% rate would otherwise apply because it consisted of qualified dividends or capital gains distributions.
• A higher tax rate may be applied to the income subjected to the allocable parental tax.
• The investment income may be subject to the additional 3.8% Medicare tax if the parent's income is high enough.
• Deductions for the parent may be reduced for itemized deductions subject to an AGI floor, such as the higher AGI floor for medical deductions and casualty and theft losses.
• The increased income may reduce other deductions or tax advantages by making it more likely that phaseout rules will apply, such as those for claiming personal and dependency exemptions or for making IRA contributions, or reducing the reduction for student loan interest.
• The earned income credit, child tax credit, dependent care credit, and educational tax credits may be reduced because of the higher income.
• The $25,000 rental loss allowance that is allowable under passive activity rules may be reduced.
• Deductions that cannot be taken include the standard deduction for a blind child, a deduction for the early withdrawal penalty of a child's savings, and any itemized deductions, such as the child's investment expenses or charitable contributions.
• If the child received tax-exempt interest from private activity bonds or other preference items, it may be a tax preference item for the parent for alternative minimum tax purposes.
• State and local income tax liability may be increased.

Circumventing the Kiddie Tax

Despite the kiddie tax, there are some ways to shelter some income using your children. You can purchase United States Savings Bonds or growth stock for the child. If the bonds are redeemed or the growth stock is sold when the kiddie tax no longer applies, then the applicable tax rate will be the child's lower rate.

If the parents have a business, they can employ their child, which will allow them to write off the wages as a business deduction and the tax on the child's income will be minimized by the child's standard deduction and applicable tax rate, since the kiddie tax does not apply to earned income. Furthermore, the business does not have to pay Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes (Social Security and Medicare taxes) nor Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) taxes if the child is under 18. And the child can contribute up to the maximum limit to an IRA account to begin retirement savings. A Roth IRA would be better for a child, because most children would be in a low tax bracket, so they wouldn't benefit much from making deductible contributions to a traditional IRA while young. While contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax deductible, earnings grow tax-free and can be withdrawn tax-free during retirement.

Some History of the Kiddie Tax

• Under the tax package passed by the Republicans at the end of 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), unearned income subject to the kiddie tax was taxed at the same rate as trusts and estates rather than at the parent's tax rate. However, the standard deduction and the tax on earned income were the same as under prior law.
• The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019 has revoked the application of the marginal tax rates of trusts to the kiddie tax, retroactive to 2018, making the previous law applicable.