well what's going on everybody it is so good to see your smiling faces once
again I hope you guys have been doing well as you guys know I am Mike the CPA
and on this channel we teach people how to be fiscally fit as we teach finances
investing and taxes and today's video is a tax video and a crucial one at that so
this is one of those tax topics that I feel that really really really should be
taught in school! But unfortunately school does not teach it in today's
video we're going to be covering the 2018 1040 individual income tax return
filing requirements so that if you're out there and maybe you just started
working or maybe you're uncertain of what the filing requirements are you're
gonna learn what they are today you're gonna know whether or not you actually
need to file a tax return or not now like I said it's a shame that school
doesn't teach this it's a it's really sad they don't but hey you know what I
should be thanking the school system for dropping the ball here I'm teaching a
very crucial life skill because gives me more opportunity and it gives me a
chance to explain this stuff to you guys over YouTube so what I've done guys is I
put this Word document together for you and it's free to download I'm gonna have
a Dropbox link I'm gonna put a Dropbox link in the description section below
the video and in the comment section of this video so you can find it and
download it for yourself it's completely free no strings attached
okay so before we look at all the other stuff let's start with the income let's
explain what type of income we're talking about here on this form so it
includes earned income so earned income is what is what guys it's it's probably
as you guess it's your wages it's your salary
it could be tips if you're like a waiter or waitress professional fees if you're
a lawyer or an accountant you charge our consulting fees things like that taxable
scholarship income fellowship grants that are taxable so those are all the
things that would count towards your earned income now you're in terms of
gross income that what they mean by gross income is that is your total of
your unearned income plus all of your earned income so gross income is your
total of your on earned income plus your earned income so what the heck is on
earned income because I would love some of that it sounds great right it
actually is so aren't earned income where we have right here what it says is
unearned income includes taxable interest ordinary dividends and capital
gain distributions it also includes unemployment compensation taxable Social
Security benefits pension distributions and new T distributions and
distributions of on to earn income from a trust so those are examples of onto
earned income and you're gonna see why that's important in just a little bit
back to the top of this worksheet and work our way down and this won't take
too long because like I said guys I'm not gonna read everything to you because
it's because everybody has different filing situations I'm just gonna focus
on the status for Finke single filers let's just do that because the rest of
these are just different filing statuses but the idea is the same so as long as
you understand this first one and how what these columns mean you're good
you're gonna be able to figure out the rest for yourself so I'm just gonna
cover this area but you can see here I have information for married filing
joint if you're head of household filer or if your status is married filing
separate all the information it's in here for you remember guys this
worksheet is for educational purposes only and I really do mean that is
there's always a chance I make them I can make a mistake
I am I human there is no cyborg Terminator
skeleton hiding beneath my skin I actually am a human and so there's
always a chance I can make mistakes now where did I pull this information just
so you guys know I did pull this information from if you go to Google I'm
showing you this here so you how you how you can find it for yourself if you type
in 2018 1040 instructions click this first link and voila here they are so
here's the actual instructions and this is where you can go as the each year
goes by so for you know next year they'll have 2019 1040 instructions the
year after that left 2020 1040 instructions well if you scroll down
here a little bit I'll show you where you can find this filing requirement
information it's all in the instructions so if you go down a little bits a little
bit and here we go so it starts right here so about like 10 pages an or so
this is where it starts so there's a chart a that talks about the filing
statuses income limits etc chart B is when you're you're a child or who you're
a dependent of somebody else that's where these rules apply and chart C is
the other filing situations where other reasons or times you might have to file
regardless if you have income or not so though there are special circumstances
to definitely look into
alright guys so the way to look at this is there's seven primary factors that
really determine whether or not you have to file the first one's your filing
status the tax you're in is gonna matter because the requirements are always
changing from year to year whether or not you're a dependent of somebody else
matters your age matters how much earned income you have how much unearned income
you have and if your are self-employed so those are the seven leading factors
that determine whether or not you have to file a tax return for this video I'm
primarily just gonna focus on the filing requirements for a single person or a
person who files single but also scroll through the worksheet just real quickly
real briefly so you can pause the video if you're another filing status such as
married filing joint qualifying widower or head of household the way to read
this is start from left to right and now in this example the person's gonna be
single right but I did include tax year 2017 so you can compare and contrast how
things have changed from 17 and into 18 so in 2018 if your filing status is
single and you're not a dependent of somebody else and you're under the age
of 65 you don't have to file a tax return and tell your income exceeds
$12,000 of earned income from from wages tips fees etc you don't have to worry
about under income at this point it's just in total if you're if you're 12 if
your total earned income is $12,000 or less you're fine the logic behind that
is because your standard deduction is $12,000 it would if you had $12,000 in
income and you had $12,000 in standard deduction it would completely net to
zero then so that's why you don't have to file and tell your income exceeds
that amount I will say just real briefly here before we move on is that you might
even though even if you aren't required to file if let's say so let's say this a
person made 10 grand and they paid some income taxes in the federal if they had
federal income taxes withheld on our check they had state income taxes
withheld on their check well even though technically they don't have to file they
still might want to because they would able to they would be able to get a
refund for those taxes they're not going to
only tax but they were able by filing a tax return they would be able to receive
a refund back for all the taxes the federal and state income taxes that were
withheld from their paychecks so that's that's a reason to file even if you
don't need to and the IRS unfortunately you know once the money's in their hands
they're not gonna send it back to you until you file a tax return so that's
why you if you want your money back you have to file a tax return to get it you
guys are gonna know this for self-employed individuals all you have
to do is make a 400 bucks and when it says 400 bucks it's a net income of 400
bucks so it's if your tol self-employment income after income you
take your income minus your expenses is $400 or greater then you're gonna have
to file a tax return even if your income doesn't even reach these other amounts
all it takes is 400 bucks of net and self-employment income and you're gonna
be needing to file a tax return the only other thing I want to point out for you
guys here for a single status filer is if you are a dependent of somebody
else and somebody else you know if you if you lived F with them full-time
they're paying the majority of your expenses and so on and so forth you
would have to file if one if you're on during if your earned income was 12,000
or more or two even if you just had honored and income of one thousand fifty
dollars or more you would have to file so that's when this on earned income
column comes into play if you guys remember on an income as your capital
gains your interest dividends and things like that I'm just going to scroll
through this real slowly now so you guys can see the other filing statuses feel
free to pause the video at any point I'm not going to take the time to explain it
but you can look at it on screen to see if you need to file
couple things I want to point out if you're somebody who files married filing
separate there's some special rules so it's they're pretty silly but these are
the rules so if you if you're under the age of 65 and you want to file married
filing separately and somebody else can claim you as a dependent your if your
income was at least five dollars I'm not kidding it actually says five dollars on
the instructions as well and your spouse files a separator and itemizes
deductions you're gonna have to file if your gross income was more than the
larger of 1,050 bucks or your earned income was up to six six thousand three
fifty dollars or greater you're gonna have to file so there's
very special circumstances if you are income I should say requirements for
filing if you filed married filing separately so be looking for that and I
included in the word document for you guys there's so here's the filing
statuses for a qualifying widower but down at the bottom of this word doc if
we go down to chart a which I've included in the word doc directly from
the instructions this is where it talks about married filing separately as you
can see if your income is at least five bucks I don't know who comes up with
this stuff five dollars really five bucks why not
$4.99 oh gosh but that's what it is for married filing separately higher if you
are over the age of 65 you get a higher standard deduction so let me go back up
the single so as you notice that there you get a little bit higher income
threshold before you hit the file if you're over the age of 65 there's also a
special provision if you're 65 and older and blind you give me an even higher
increment I didn't include it here because it just it was taking so much
time to include all this detail if you want to find what those amounts are just
come down here and within these instructions is where you're gonna find
that information it's on shard B in chart B it will talk about it within
this area if you're if a person is 65 years of age or older or blind
these are six areas are things to look for that would require you to file a tax
return besides the ones we discussed up here and like I said guys all this
information can be found in the instructions but really I think if you
like to download this word document for free that I've put together for you and
I think it's gonna be a great resource for you to use going forward like I said
it's a really it's a shame in my opinion they don't teach this stuff in school
because so many kids when they first enter the workforce they don't know
anything about this stuff they have zero knowledge so the only way they're gonna
find out is if they talk to their parents are trying to look up stuff
online they're completely lost and it's such a shame I understand you guys might
have some questions so if you have any questions at all about this stuff I'm
happy to answer them to the best of my ability just leave those questions down
in the comments section down below and I would be happy to get back to you and
besides if you just even if you just want to say hi that's fine I love
reading what you guys have to say about all this stuff alright guys if you liked
the video make sure you drop a like before you leave I'd really appreciate
it share this information with a friend especially somebody who's brand-new to
the workforce if somebody who doesn't have any clue of how this stuff works or
if they just need to know what these new tax filing requirements are for 2018 I
know they'll find this helpful I'm sure of it last but not least if your needs
money in life TV I just want to say welcome on this channel we're all about
teaching people like yourself finances investing taxes and more on a regular
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gotta do is hit that red subscribe button down below
to not miss any of our future uploads thank you so much for hanging out with
me I look forward to reading your comments down below and I really hope
you found this helpful hope you guys have a great week stay
chill and I'll see you in the next episode bye guys love y'all peace