 Income tax 2021-2022 filing requirements. Get ready to get refunds to the backs? Diving into income tax 2021-2022. Most of this information can be found in the Form 1040 Instructions Tax Year 2021 found on the IRS website, irs.gov. Do I have to file a tax return? Note that this question is different from the question of should I file the tax return or will I benefit from filing the tax return? Or in other words, if you don't have to file a tax return, you still might be able to get a benefit such as possibly a refund by filing a tax return and that is becoming more and more likely given the fact of the changes that have happened recently with regards to refundable credits, things like an earned income tax credits, child tax credits and the recovery rebate credits and the stimulus payments and so on and so forth. And also a lot of times the software is free if your income is below a certain threshold. So for many people, if they ask this question to you, I would think that it would be beneficial to at least check it out if you can and if you could get access to the free software to see if you would still benefit from filing the taxes even if you may not be required to do so. Okay, so you can use chart A, B or C to see if you must file a return. You could find those on the Form 1040 Instructions. You had citizens who live in or had income from a U.S. possession should see Publication 570. Obviously it gets a little bit more complicated. In those instances, you could take a look at the Publication 570 which is on the IRS website, irs.gov. Residents of Puerto Rico can use Tax Topic 901 to see if they must file. Even if you do not otherwise have to file a return, you should file one to get a refund of any federal income taxes withheld. So one of the reasons you might still want to file, in other words, your income, for example, might be below a certain threshold for you to be required to file. And in that instance, the IRS would say, well, if you don't file, I'm not gonna come after you or anything like that because you don't owe us any money. If you were to file, you possibly would be getting a refund. What kind of refunds might you get? You might get the refund of any withholdings that you had because if you had W-2 wages, you most likely had some kind of withholdings even if your income was below a certain threshold unless you opted out of doing that. And then you also have the refundable credits that are on top of that that you might get by filing. So you should also file if you are eligible for any of the following credits. So this includes the earned income tax credit, big refundable credits, that if your income is below a certain threshold, you might have access to refundable child tax credit or the additional child tax credit, another huge credit. We have the American Opportunity Credit that's related to education. We'll talk more about these credits in future presentations, but just if you have access, if these things sound like they might apply to you and you're thinking that you're not going to file or someone is asking you about this and they're saying maybe I won't file, if these things apply, they might still want to check it out. Credit for the federal tax on fuels, premium tax credits, health coverage tax credits, recovery rebate credit that's related to the stimulus payments, credits for sick and family leave, child and dependent care credit, requirement to reconcile advanced payments of the premium tax credit. If you, your spouse with whom you are filing a joint return or a dependent was enrolled in coverage through the marketplace for 2021 and advanced payments of the premium tax credit were made for this coverage, you must file a 2021 return and attach form 8962. So this has to do with health coverage and there's different kind of, they had the marketplace that went on with the health coverage and that would be an instance where if you're in the marketplace or going through the marketplace, then they're trying to estimate or they might be trying to prepay some of the premiums by anticipating what the credit is. And this is another form of what the government really likes doing these days which is trying to predict what the actual tax return will be beforehand making an estimate in other words on what the credit or benefit that you would get for the marketplace insurance would be when you file, which isn't possible because they don't know what your income situation is gonna be it's gonna be dependent on the income situation but that's the estimate that they'll make and then in essence, giving you a prepayment similar to the advanced child tax credit and the stimulus payments being an advanced payment of the recovery rebate credits. But in this case, instead of giving you the money directly they're lowering the premium that you're paying during the year. So you're still, it would be like you're getting the money and then paying off your insurance premiums which is again, it's a little kind of deceptive to me in some cases because people start to think that the premiums are that low and really what's happening is you're paying part of the premiums with the credit that they're estimating and giving an advanced payment on. So if you do that then you're gonna have to reconcile the advanced payments that you got in the form of premium lowering to the actual credit that you don't know about until you calculate the return. That means you have to file the 2021 taxes in order to do that reconciliation. We might go into that more in future presentations so it's a little bit confusing. So you or whoever enrolled you should have received a form 1095A. So if you get a 1095A then that's the one that kind of indicates it's a marketplace kind of situation. And so if you get that you're probably gonna have to file even if you weren't required to file for all other conditions. So that comes from the marketplace with information about your coverage and any advanced payments. You must attach form 8962 even if someone else enrolls you, your spouse or your dependent. If you are dependent who has claimed on someone else's 2021 return you do not have to attach form 8962. Exception for certain children under age 19 or full-time students. If certain conditions apply you can elect to include your return the income of a child who was under age 19 at the end of 2021 or was a full-time student under age 24 at the end of 2021. So you got those age components to keep into consideration. To do so use form 8814. If you make this election your child doesn't have to file a return for details use tax topic 553 or see form 8814. A child born on January 1st, 1998 is considered to be age 24 at the end of 2021. Do not use form 8814 for such a child. Resident aliens. These rules also apply if you were a resident alien. Also you may qualify for certain tax treaty benefits see publication 519 for details. You can find that on the IRS website irs.gov irs.gov non-resident aliens and dual status aliens. These rules also apply if you were a non-resident alien or dual status alien and both of the following apply you were married to a US citizen or resident alien at the end of 2021. You elected to be taxed as a resident alien. See publication 519 for details. You can find that on the IRS website irs.gov. Specific rules apply to determine if you are a resident alien, non-resident alien or a dual status alien. Most non-resident aliens and dual status aliens have different filing requirements and may have to file form 1040 in our publication 519 discusses these requirements and other information to help aliens comply with US tax law. So here's an example of the schedule or a table which you can find on the instructions for the 1040 the form 1040 2021. So for most people, if your filing status is they got the filing status is on the left we'll talk more about these and shortly single married filing jointly married filing separate head of household qualified widow, widow or and at the end of the year you were and they got the age requirements under 65 and so on. Then file a return if your gross income was at least 12,550 and 14,250 married filing jointly 25,126,450 and so on. And you can kind of think about these items as basically the standard you can think about. Well, just in general, the standard deduction because if your income is below a certain threshold you're probably not taking the itemized deductions you're probably taking the standard deduction. So at you can at least say, well if my income is below the standard deduction then in general I wouldn't know any tax because my taxable income would be at zero at that point in time. So therefore I generally wouldn't be required to file at least to pay the taxes that I owe at that point in time. However, again, that does not mean that you would not want to file and you could have other conditions that apply that we talked about up top like the health insurance marketplace that would require you to file and so on. But again, it doesn't mean that you wouldn't want to file. So those are two separate questions. If someone asks you, do I need to file? That's a different question than do you want to file? And at this point in time, given the fact that there's free software out there and you've got all of this refundable credit business and advanced payments and stimulus and recovery rebate credits, I would think it beneficial to check it out at least and see if it would be beneficial for one of those reasons to file.