Posts Tagged ‘2013 Federal Tax Returns’

Filing A 2013 Federal Tax Return – Required or Recommended???

Tuesday, January 28th, 2014

The exclusive purpose for the information which is provided from this website is to disseminate information, and not to provide tax advice.

Insofar as filing a 2013 Federal income tax return is concerned, there are two situations which will probably apply to you:

1.  You are REQUIRED to file a 2013 Federal income tax return (you don’t have a choice in the matter), or

2.  While you are NOT REQUIRED to file a 2013 Federal income tax return, it is RECOMMENDED that you do (you do have a choice in the matter).  

If you are a resident of a state that does require the filing of tax returns, if situation #1 above applies to you, your state department of revenue would also like to have a tax return from you. 

2013 Federal Filing Requirements:  

 

The best reference document to use to obtain the specific requirements for your income tax situation is IRS Publication 17 ( http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p17.pdf ).   There are three factors which should be reviewed that relate to:

a.  Your gross income,

b.  Your filing status, and

c.  Your age

See pages 5-6,  and Table 1-1.  Additional information is provided for “Surviving Spouses, Executors, Administrators and Legal Representatives”, “U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Living Abroad’, “Residents of Puerto Rico”, “Certain Children Under Age 19 or Full-Time Students”, “Self Employed Persons”, and “Individuals With Income From U. S. Possessions”, and “Aliens”.

Table 1-2 on page 6 provides decision table criteria for both single and married dependents of taxpayers. 

Finally, Table 1-3 on page 7 may ultimately cause you to be required to file a Federal income tax return.  The table, entitled “Other Situations When You Must File A 2013 Return”  provides four conditions in which the tax return filing requirement must be met. 

While you may now be in the very small group of people who are NOT REQUIRED  to file a 2013 income tax return, there  may be cicrcumstances or situations in which the filing of a Federal (and possible a state) income tax return is RECOMMENDED:  (more…)