Assume
that your W-2 form shows a salary of $30,000 last year. It shows
income tax withheld of $5,000. A Form 1099-INT reports $500 in
interest. You salary and the interest were your only two sources
of income last year. You arenotmarried,
and do not have enough deductions to make it advantageous to
itemize.
Based on this information,
should you use the Form 1040EZ, the Form 1040A, or the Form 1040 to
file your taxes?
Study "Which Form--1040EZ, 1040A or 1040?" at the IRS
website before making your choice.
Justify
your choice, citing some information provided at the IRS website
under the topic, "Which Form--1040EZ, 1040A or 1040?".
Enclose in quotation marks any information that is a direct quote from
the site.
Using the information provided in
#1 (not your personal information),estimate the tax refund or tax owed employing the Form 1040EZ Tax
Estimator at the
Commerce Clearing House website. Leave the lines for
unemployment compensation and the earned income credit at "0."
After you have entered all the relevant variables, click on
"Calculate."
Results of
Form 1040EZ Tax Estimator calculation:
Fill in the
appropriate blank.
Tax refund of
Balance due (tax owed) of
Should a new W-4 be filed?
(The Form W-4 is the document you complete when you first go to work
for a company to help your employer determine how much income tax to
withhold from each of your paychecks)Yes
or
No
To help
you determine whether you personally are required to file a return,
study "Do I Have to File a Return?", the fourth menu
selection in the Table of Contents.
Study especially Table 1-1, "2004 Filing Requirements for Most
Taxpayers" if your parents cannot claim you as a
dependent on their tax return; if your parents can claim you as
a dependent on their tax return, pay close attention to Table 1-2, "2004 Filing Requirements for Dependents".
You will have to scroll down several pages to get to each of the
tables. Indicate which table applies to you.
Table 1-1 or
Table 1-2
Are you required to file a return?
Yes
or
No
Justify your decision, explaining specifically
what information from your study of the applicable table was the basis
for your decision. Enclose in quotation marks the
specific information cited from the table.
4. If you found in #3 that you are required to file a return,
choose the form you should
file.
Study
the information provided under the topic, "Which Form--1040EZ,
1040A or 1040?"
at the IRS
website. Then choose which of the following forms you should
use?
Form 1040EZ or
Form 1040A or
Form 1040
Justify
your choice citing specific information from the "Which Form--1040EZ,
1040A, or 1040?" article. Enclose the information in quotation
marks.
Now that
you have decided whether you have to file a federal income tax
return, and selected the appropriate form to use in the event you do,
you have become concerned about state income tax. Search
the Web to find the Web site for your state's income tax
department (The tax department in Arkansas is called the Department of
Finance and Administration.), and at the site find a link to state
income tax forms which can be downloaded and printed free of charge. If
you live in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington,
or Wyoming, your state does not have a state income tax, so perform
a search for a link to Arkansas state income tax forms. Do
the same if you are an international student. (Complete
Part 5 whether or not you have to file a federal income tax return.)
A
suggestion: When performing Web searches, you may find the Dogpile
website helpful. At Dogpile, you can type your search words or
phrases, and the site instead of using just one search engine (like Yahoo,
for example) will use all the major search engines to perform your search.
When
you have found a site from which income tax forms for your state can
be downloaded and printed free of charge, provide the following information: