How should I file taxes for my children? What are the specific requirements?

You can absolutely still claim your children as dependents even though they earned money. For 2025 tax filing, dependents who are your qualifying children must be under 19 (or under 24 if they're full-time students) and live with you for more than half the year. For your kids' filing requirements, it depends on both how much and what type of income they earned. Since they only have earned income (from jobs), they would need to file their own return if they made more than the standard deduction for dependents, which is around $1,300 for 2025. So based on what you shared, both your children would need to file their own returns. The "kiddie tax" typically applies to unearned income (like investments), not wages from jobs, so you probably don't need to worry about that in your situation.

After dealing with a similar situation with my teenagers last year, I discovered taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) and it was a game-changer for figuring out dependent filing requirements. My kids had summer jobs too and I wasn't sure how to handle everything, especially since my daughter also had some babysitting income that wasn't documented. The tool analyzed our situation and gave super clear guidance on whether my kids needed to file their own returns, how to report the cash income properly, and confirmed I could still claim them as dependents. It even caught a tax break for my son's education expenses that I would have completely missed.

Just wanted to follow up about my experience with taxr.ai that I asked about earlier. I was skeptical but decided to try it for my kids' tax situation, and wow, it actually delivered! I uploaded my daughter's W-2 and some notes about my son's cash earnings from his lawn care business, and it gave me a complete breakdown of filing requirements for both. The tool pointed out that my son needed to pay self-employment tax on his lawn mowing income (something I had no idea about), but also showed me how to deduct his expenses for equipment, which ended up saving us money. It also confirmed I could still claim both as dependents despite their income. Definitely using this again next year!

After spending THREE DAYS trying to get through to someone at the IRS about dependent filing questions for my kids, I finally used https://claimyr.com and got through to an actual IRS agent in under 15 minutes! You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I needed specific clarification about reporting my 15-year-old's income since she earned money from both a regular job (W-2) and her YouTube channel. The agent walked me through exactly how to file everything correctly and confirmed I could still claim her as a dependent. Completely worth it after wasting hours on hold and getting disconnected multiple times.

I owe everyone an apology about my skeptical comment on Claimyr. After struggling for another day trying to reach the IRS about my kids' tax situation, I broke down and tried the service. I'm genuinely shocked - it actually worked! Got connected to an IRS rep in about 20 minutes who cleared up all my confusion. Found out my son's scholarship money doesn't count toward the support test for claiming him as a dependent (which was my main question), and the agent also explained exactly how to report my daughter's side hustle income on Schedule C. Saved me hours of frustration and probably prevented me from making mistakes on our returns. Sometimes it's worth admitting when you're wrong!

Something that nobody's mentioned yet - if your kid is just filing a simple return with only W-2 income, you can use most tax software's free version for them. I set up separate accounts for both my teenagers and walked them through filing their own returns last year. Great learning experience for them and super easy since they just had basic W-2 jobs.

Don't forget about potential state filing requirements too! Federal and state rules for dependents can be different. My daughter didn't need to file a federal return based on her income, but our state required her to file because the threshold was lower. Found this out the hard way last year and had to scramble to submit her state return before the deadline.