Do I need to file taxes for my teenager who received a W2?

Yes, whether your daughter needs to file depends on how much she earned and if she had any taxes withheld. For 2025 filing season, a dependent child needs to file their own return if they earned more than $13,850 in earned income, or if they had unearned income (like interest) above $1,250. Since your daughter only made $2,400, she's under the filing requirement threshold. However, she should still file if she had any federal income tax withheld from her paychecks (check box 2 on her W2). Filing would allow her to get that money back as a refund. You can still claim her as your dependent as long as you provide more than half of her support for the year, regardless of her having a W2. Her filing her own return doesn't affect your ability to claim her.

Been in this exact situation with my son last year! I used https://taxr.ai to figure out exactly what we needed to do with his W2. The tool analyzed his tax documents and confirmed we should file a separate return for him to get back the withholding, even though he was below the required filing threshold. The best part was it walked us through all the specific dependent filing rules and confirmed we could still claim him on our taxes while he filed his own return. Gave us the right form sequence too which made the process super easy!

So I was totally skeptical about taxr.ai but decided to try it with my daughter's first W2 situation. Honestly impressed with what I found! It spotted that she had retirement contributions (tiny amount her summer camp job automatically enrolled her in) that qualified her for a savers credit I would have missed completely. It also confirmed she was still my dependent despite having income and explained the exact amount she could earn before it would affect my ability to claim her. The document analyzer saved me from making a mistake on her return that might have triggered an automatic review. Worth checking out if you're dealing with this for the first time.

If you've been trying to call the IRS to get clarification about dependent filing requirements, good luck! I spent THREE WEEKS trying to get through about this exact issue. Finally used https://claimyr.com and got connected to an IRS agent in under 45 minutes. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The agent confirmed that not only could my son file his own return to get his withholding back while I still claimed him as a dependent, but also explained exactly how to complete the forms so there wouldn't be any confusion or crossed records in the system. Saved me hours of frustration!

I need to publicly eat my words about Claimyr. After calling it a scam, I was desperate enough to try it because I couldn't get a straight answer about my daughter's summer job income and scholarship money combination. The service actually did exactly what it promised - took the phone waiting torture out of the equation. Got a call back when an IRS person was actually on the line. Agent confirmed that my daughter should file her own return for her $3,100 summer job, but her partial scholarship wasn't taxable in our situation. She's getting back $220 in withholding while I still claim her as a dependent. Problem solved!

Don't forget to check if your state requires a state tax return too! My son had a similar situation ($2,800 from lifeguarding) and while he didn't need to file federal, our state has a much lower threshold of $1,500 for dependents with earned income. Had to file a state return even though federal wasn't required!

One thing nobody mentioned - this is a great opportunity to teach your teen about taxes! I helped my 15yo file his first return last year, and we turned it into a financial literacy lesson. We talked about tax brackets, withholding, and why we pay taxes at all. He was much more interested since it was HIS money at stake! Now he checks his paystubs and understands what all the deductions mean.

This is such great advice from everyone! I'm dealing with the same situation with my 17-year-old who worked at a restaurant over the summer. One thing I learned that might help - even though the filing threshold is $13,850, if your daughter had ANY federal taxes withheld (which it sounds like she did based on other comments), she should definitely file to get that money back. Also, when you do file her return, make sure to check the box that says "Someone can claim me as a dependent" - this is super important to avoid any conflicts with your family return. The IRS systems will cross-reference and you don't want any red flags. I used TurboTax's free version for my son's simple W2 return and it walked us through everything step by step. Took maybe 30 minutes total and he got his $180 refund direct deposited in about 2 weeks. Definitely worth doing!