I just learned that beginning in 2008, full-time students up to age 24 likely will have to pay income taxes on unearned income, such as interest, at their parents' top income tax rate.
http://www.hansonbridgett.com/newsletters/EstatePlanning/EstatePlanJuly07.html
This law seems unfair to me and unworkable in many cases.
The existing "kiddie tax" applies to all taxpayers up to a given age.
Why, for Pete's sake, is Congress applying higher tax rates only to full-time students? Why not part-time students or ski bums?
What if a kid is on his own, alienated from one or more parents, living off his savings, loans, grants, gifts from grandparents (or even others), trying to get an education, and can't meet the earned income test in this new law (can anybody paying room, board, tuition, etc. of over $20,000/year), how does he get access to his parents' tax returns, especially if the parents are divorced?
Age 18 is adulthood. It's not age five.
Is Congress nuts?
2007-09-26
21:40:26
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