Business & Finance

I took a job and got a w-2 showing that I earned around $550. It seems that fed income taxes, social security taxes, and medicare taxes were withheld from my checks. I am filed as a dependent under my parents and was told that I owe money to the state because of unearned income, but that I didn't owe for federal tax.

My parents did not know about my seasonal job. Is it important that I tell them? will anything happen with this w-2?

Your earned income was $550. If you had unearned income of $300 or more, then you had to file a federal tax return.

Depending on how your parents handled your unearned income, you may not owe any federal tax. I am guessing that your parents paid any tax due on your unearned income with their tax return. Or, they may have filed a return for you, without your wages.

So, pay the state tax due and hope the IRS doesn't come looking for your tax return. You probably won't receive any communication from the IRS if in fact you owe no tax.

The government will know and they can come back on them within 7 years and they will have big fines and penalties even if it was a mistake!

If this is your only income, you are not required to file. Your income is much below the filing requirements for a dependent.
However, you can file to get refund of federal income tax withheld, if any.

You don't have to file since you made so little, and nothing will happen if you don't. But if you did file, you'd get back whatever they took out for federal income tax.

There's another issue though, depending on where you live, you might owe state and/or local tax. And you could end up getting some kind of notification in the mail from them.

You have to file a W-2 even for a seasonal job. You probably dont make enough to pay taxes so at the end of the year you'll get it all back but it does need to be withheld.

if yo earn less than $600, you don't need to report it, but if the employer reported it and you earn more than $600 (along w/ other work), you will most likely want to file a return.

Sure! As long as you're cool with getting a CP2000 nasty-gram from the IRS about 12 to 18 months after the filing deadline, telling you that you "forgot" to report some income and billing you for the additional tax, penalties, and interest.

Your parents don't need to know about the seasonal job as they don't report the income -- YOU do. However if your parents were reporting your unearned income on their return under the "kiddie tax" provisions (form 8814), since you have earned income as well they can NOT go that route. YOU must file your own return (including Form 8615) and pay the taxes yourself if you have a combination of earned and unearned income or if you had any tax withheld from any of your income at all. In that case, they do need to know that you had earned income and must not go the Form 8814 route.

But, sarcasm aside, you MUST report all income on your tax return if you are required to file one.

haha NO!