Instructions for Form 8814, Parents' Election to Report Child's Interest and Dividends

• Legal Form Number: 8814
• Year: 2025
• Issuer: Treasury Department
• Section: Treasury Department

Userid: CPM Schema: instrx Leadpct: 100% Pt. size: 8.5 Draft Ok to Print

AH XSL/XML Fileid: … ions/i8814/2023/a/xml/cycle06/source (Init. & Date) _______

Page 1 of 3 12:18 - 8-Jan-2024

The type and rule above prints on all proofs including departmental reproduction proofs. MUST be removed before printing.

2023

Instructions for Form 8814

Parents’ Election To Report Child’s Interest and Dividends

Department of the Treasury

Internal Revenue Service

Section references are to the Internal Revenue Code unless

otherwise noted.

Future Developments

For the latest information about developments related to Form 8814

and its instructions, such as legislation enacted after they were

published, go to IRS.gov/Form8814.

General Instructions

Purpose of Form

Use this form if you elect to report your child’s income on your return.

If you do, your child will not have to file a return. You can make this

election if your child meets all of the following conditions.

•The child was under age 19 (or under age 24 if a full-time

student) at the end of 2023. Full-time student is defined below.

•The child’s only income was from interest and dividends,

including capital gain distributions and Alaska Permanent Fund

dividends.

•The child’s gross income for 2023 was less than $12,500.

•The child is required to file a 2023 return.

•The child does not file a joint return for 2023.

•There were no estimated tax payments for the child for 2023

(including any overpayment of tax from his or her 2022 return

applied to 2023 estimated tax).

•There was no federal income tax withheld from the child’s

income.

You must also qualify. See Parents who qualify to make the

election, below.

Note. The amounts at $1,250 and below are not taxed when using

this election. See Rate may be higher for more information.

Full-time student. A full-time student is your child who for some

part of each of 5 calendar months during the year was enrolled as a

full-time student at a school, or took a full-time on-farm training

course given by a school or a state, county, or local government

agency. A school includes a technical, trade, or mechanical school.

It does not include an on-the-job training course, correspondence

school, or school offering courses only through the Internet.

Certain January 1 birthdays. A child born on January 1, 2005, is

considered to be age 19 at the end of 2023. You cannot make this

election for such a child unless the child was a full-time student.

A child born on January 1, 2000, is considered to be age 24 at

the end of 2023. You cannot make this election for such a child.

How to make the election. To make the election, complete and

attach Form(s) 8814 to your tax return and file your return by the due

date (including extensions). A separate Form 8814 must be filed for

each child whose income you choose to report on your return. You

can make the election for one or more children and not for others.

Parents who qualify to make the election. You qualify to make

this election if you file Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR and any of

the following apply.

•You are filing a joint return for 2023 with the child’s other parent.

•You and the child’s other parent were married to each other but

file separate returns for 2023 and you had the higher taxable

income.

•You were unmarried, treated as unmarried for federal income

tax purposes, or separated from the child’s other parent by a

divorce or separate maintenance decree. The child must have

lived with you for most of the year (you were the custodial

parent). If you were the custodial parent and you remarried, you

can make the election on a joint return with your new spouse.

But if you and your new spouse don’t file a joint return, you

qualify to make the election only if you had higher taxable

income than your new spouse.

See Which Parent's Return To Use below for more information

about which parent’s return to use.

Note. If you and the child’s other parent were not married but lived

together during the year with the child, you qualify to make the

election only if you are the parent with the higher taxable income.

Which Parent's Return To Use

If a child’s parents are married to each other and file a joint return,

use the joint return when electing to report the child’s interest and

dividend income on their return. For other situations when the

parents do not file a joint return, see Parents Who Don't File a Joint

Return, next.

Parents Who Don’t File a Joint Return

For parents who don’t file a joint return and are electing to report the

child’s interest and dividend income on their return, the following

discussions explain which parent's tax return must be used to figure

the tax.

Only the parent whose tax return is used can make the election

described earlier under Parents who qualify to make the election.

Parents are married. If the child's parents file separate returns, use

the return of the parent with the greater taxable income.

Parents not living together. If the child's parents are married to

each other but not living together, and the parent with whom the

child lives (the custodial parent) is considered unmarried, use the

return of the custodial parent. If the custodial parent isn’t considered

unmarried, use the return of the parent with the greater taxable

income.

For an explanation of when a married person living apart from his

or her spouse is considered unmarried, see Head of Household in

Pub. 501.

Parents are divorced. If the child's parents are divorced or legally

separated, and the parent who had custody of the child for the

greater part of the year (the custodial parent) hasn’t remarried, use

the return of the custodial parent.

Custodial parent remarried. If the custodial parent has

remarried, the stepparent (rather than the noncustodial parent) is

treated as the child's other parent. Therefore, if the custodial parent

and the stepparent file a joint return, use that joint return. Don’t use

the return of the noncustodial parent.

If the custodial parent and the stepparent are married, but file

separate returns, use the return of the one with the greater taxable

income. If the custodial parent and the stepparent are married but

not living together, the earlier discussion under Parents not living

together applies.

Parents never married. If a child's parents have never been

married to each other, but lived together all year, use the return of

the parent with the greater taxable income. If the parents didn’t live

together all year, the rules explained earlier under Parents are

divorced apply.

Jan 8, 2024 Cat. No. 92918Z