must my father in law file or pay federal taxes?

Question

he is 85 yrs old gets a pension and social security worth about 2300 a month he has not filed since my mothr inlaw died 3 yrs ago can he get in trouble....

Answer 1

you must always file your tax return even if you do not own anything or expect a refund

Answer 2

It depends on how much of that total is pension and how much is social security. If the pension for 2005 was over $9450, then he was required to file. If most of the amount was from social security, and his pension totalled $9450 or less, then he wasn't required to file.

AARP sponsors a program in most communities called Tax-Aide. Trained volunteers do tax returns at no charge during the tax season (typically January or February thru mid-April). Check out AARP website http://www.aarp.org/money/taxaide/ - click on Find Tax-Aide site on the left, and call one of the contact numbers that come up for your area - you'll probably find someone who will help you out now and answer your questions, maybe even do the back returns if they were required. I'm a Tax-Aide Volunteer, and while most of the returns are done during tax season, have worked on things after season is over also where needed. Email me if you want to with amounts of pension and social security (separate numbers, not total) for the years he didn't file, and I'll check it out for you.

Can he get in trouble? Depends on what you mean by that. If he needed to file and didn't, then he should get the back returns filed and pay anything he owed. He's not going to jail or anything, and if he doesn't have the money, IRS can work out payments.

Best guess - he probably does owe something, so don't let this go until somebody catches up with him for it.

Answer 3

He needs to get guidance from an accredited tax preparer. To answer your question, yes he should have filed and will receive exemptions for his age.. Some of his income after calculating may be exempt but his best bet is to prepare his paperwork for filing and if it is not a status where he must file then he does not have to, but he has the paperwork to present in the event of an audit.
Hopefully, he will be exemption free and not required to file, otherwise, he will have to pay penalty and interest for unpaid years. Despite all else, you can always play it safe and file a tax return with the IRS with no refund or payment due.

Answer 4

If he makes over a certain amount per year then he must file. He can get in trouble for tax evasion if he does not file, the bad thing is they add major penalties for not filing in a timely manner, so he may already owe a pretty good sum already.

Answer 5

yes, he should be filing however Most of his income should be nontaxable and at his age he shouldn't owe any taxes and for the most part he probably won't get into any trouble because he probably owes very little if any in taxes and chances are they withhold any taxes he should have paid from his check so he would owe nothing but yes he should file just to show that he had income it just wasn't enough to require payment or refund for that matter

Answer 6

He owes about 3 years in back taxes. Speak to an attorney and/or good accountant to keep him out of some serious trouble.

Answer 7

Most of the previous answers are just silly.

There's a tool on the IRS website which will tell you if he needs to file. Go here:

http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96623,00.html

Answer 8

He should find out through a tax professional if he needs to file.

Answer 9

Yes. As long as he's alive and receives any income, he must pay his estimated taxes every quarter, and he must file an income tax return along with everyone else. If his income is low enough that he doesn't owe any taxes on it, whatever taxes he paid in (if any) would be refunded to him... but it has to be reported as income nonetheless.

Answer 10

if he has taxable income of more than $7,000 I believe there may be a filing requirement. Go talk to a local CPA and find out.