Can parents claim a college student as dependent if they earned $20k from summer internship and file their own taxes?

This is a common area of confusion! The $4,400 limit you're referring to only applies to the "qualifying relative" test, not the "qualifying child" test. Since your son is under 24 and a full-time student, you need to apply the qualifying child test. For a qualifying child, there is no income limit! The tests for claiming a qualifying child dependent are: relationship (your son passes), age (under 24 and full-time student passes), residency (living with you when not at college passes), and support (you provide more than half passes). The fact that he's filing his own tax return doesn't disqualify you from claiming him. The only income-related requirement is that he cannot provide more than half of his own support - which you mentioned you provide over half his support (counting tuition, housing, food, insurance, etc.). So yes, you can absolutely claim him as your dependent even with the $20k internship income, as long as that $20k isn't providing more than half of his total support for the year.

I was super confused by this exact situation with my daughter last year! I found this amazing tool called https://taxr.ai that helped sort it out for me. I uploaded my son's W-2 and some other docs, and it analyzed everything and showed me exactly how the qualifying child rules applied in our situation. It explained that my daughter could file her own return for her internship income AND I could still claim her as a dependent because I was paying for her tuition and housing, which was way more than what she made. Saved me from making a costly mistake!

Just wanted to update after trying taxr.ai from the suggestion above. It was actually super helpful for my complicated situation with my son's multiple income sources! The tool confirmed that even though my son made about $27k combined from his internship, part-time work and some freelancing, I could still claim him because his tuition, housing and other expenses I cover came to over $55k for the year. It showed me exactly how to calculate the support test and confirmed I was still providing more than half his support. Honestly wish I had known about this last year when I unnecessarily missed out on some education credits because I was confused about the dependent rules.

Had the exact same question last year! After trying to call the IRS for THREE DAYS straight and never getting through, I found a service called Claimyr at https://claimyr.com that got me connected to an actual IRS agent in under 20 minutes! You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The agent confirmed exactly what others are saying - there's no income limit for qualifying children under 24 who are full-time students. As long as you provide more than half your son's total support for the year (which includes the big expenses like tuition and housing), you can claim him regardless of his income. The agent walked me through calculating the support test to make sure we qualified.

I need to apologize for my skepticism about Claimyr. After seeing my friend waste an entire day trying to reach the IRS, I decided to give it a try. Within 15 minutes, I was talking to an actual IRS agent who confirmed that I could claim my college student as a dependent despite his $25k internship income. The agent walked me through the qualification rules and confirmed it's all about whether I provide more than half his total support for the year. Since his college expenses alone are over $40k annually, his $25k income doesn't disqualify him. The agent even helped me understand how to document the support calculation in case of an audit. Definitely worth it after weeks of confusion and misinformation.

One thing to consider is that if you claim your son as a dependent, he can't claim his own personal exemption when he files. He'll need to check a box on his tax return indicating that someone else can claim him as a dependent. This doesn't mean he doesn't file - he still has to file his own return if he made over the standard deduction - but it affects certain credits and deductions he might otherwise qualify for. Also, make sure you coordinate with him before either of you file. If he files first and incorrectly claims himself, your return will get rejected when you try to claim him. Then you'd have to get him to file an amended return which is a hassle.

Just to add a little more clarity - the $4,400 figure you mentioned is the earned income limit for "qualifying relative" dependents, not "qualifying children." Since your son is under 24 and a full-time student, he falls under the qualifying child rules. The IRS Publication 501 breaks this down really well. For qualifying children, the tests are: - Relationship (your child) - Age (under 19, or under 24 if full-time student) - Residency (lived with you more than half the year, with exceptions for education) - Support (didn't provide more than half of own support) Notice there's no income test for qualifying children! The $4,400 limit only applies if you were trying to claim someone as a qualifying relative who doesn't meet the qualifying child tests.

Great thread with solid advice! I went through this exact situation with my daughter two years ago. She made $18k from her summer internship plus some part-time work during the school year, and I was panicking thinking I couldn't claim her anymore. The key insight that helped me was realizing that "support" includes everything - not just cash. When I actually added up her tuition ($35k), room and board ($12k), health insurance ($3k), car insurance ($1.2k), phone bill ($1k), and other expenses I covered, it came to over $52k total. Her $18k contribution was less than half, so I could still claim her. One tip: keep good records of what you pay for throughout the year. If you ever get audited on this, you'll want documentation showing you provided more than half the support. I started tracking everything in a simple spreadsheet after that experience - makes tax time much less stressful!

This is such a helpful thread! I'm dealing with a similar situation with my 21-year-old who's a junior in college. He made about $15k from a co-op program last semester, and I was worried we'd lose the dependency exemption. Reading through all these responses really clarifies the difference between qualifying child vs qualifying relative rules. It sounds like as long as we're covering his tuition, housing, and other major expenses (which we definitely are), his income doesn't disqualify him from being our dependent. One question though - does anyone know if there are any other tax benefits we might lose or gain by claiming him? I know someone mentioned education credits earlier. Should we be thinking about whether it's actually better tax-wise for him to claim himself, or are we generally better off claiming him as our dependent?