Gross Income For Dependency Purposes

[travis bickle]

Good day,

A colleague of mine called the IRS the other day and was told that "the amount of SSI received by an individual counts when determining support for dependency purposes."

This sounded odd to me, so I did some quick look-ups:

1st - Example 1 on page 31 of Pub 17 has an individual receiving "nontaxable" Social Security monies. In the example, that individual cannot be a dependent of the other person in the example [in other words, the IRS is using SSI as a component of gross income].

2nd - Page 3-19, left-hand column of TTB states that [for dependency purposes] "Gross Income does not include nontaxable Social Security."

So, is Pub 17 right? Is there a mistake on page 3-19 of TTB? Am I not reading correctly?

Your comments invited.

[Larmil]

Both are right

Good day,

A colleague of mine called the IRS the other day and was told that "the amount of SSI received by an individual counts when determining support for dependency purposes."

This sounded odd to me, so I did some quick look-ups:

1st - Example 1 on page 31 of Pub 17 has an individual receiving "nontaxable" Social Security monies. In the example, that individual cannot be a dependent of the other person in the example [in other words, the IRS is using SSI as a component of gross income].

2nd - Page 3-19, left-hand column of TTB states that [for dependency purposes] "Gross Income does not include nontaxable Social Security."

So, is Pub 17 right? Is there a mistake on page 3-19 of TTB? Am I not reading correctly?

Your comments invited.

TTB is talking about dependency gross income test. A QR must have gross income of less than $3500. Pub. 17 is taking about support test. In case of a QR taxpayer must provide over half of the support. In case of QC the child could provide more than half the support.

[BP.]

Agree with Larmil --- two different tests are being mixed --- gross income test is separate from support test.

Also, I believe that the acronym "SSI' is used to refer to Supplemental Security Income, and that is different from Social Security benefits. Not really relevant to your question; just an aside. I learned about this after asking a client on SSI for his 1099-SSA --he doesn't get one.

Cheers!
Barb