If I can be claimed as a dependent, what do I do without my parent's tax information?
The request for your parent's income comes from Form 8615, Tax for Certain Children Who Have Unearned Income.  I typically see this form appear as I'm doing my daughter's taxes and start to enter data from stock transactions. In other words, your earned income is your's. But if you are a dependent, or 'can be,' the flow avoids the potentially lucrative results from gifting children appreciated stock, and have them take the gain at their lower, potentially zero cap gain rate. I suggest you grab a coffee and thumb through Pub 929 Tax Rules for Children and Dependents to understand this better.  From page 14 of the linked doc - Parent's return information not available. If a child   can’t get the required information about his or her parent's   tax return, the child (or the child's legal representative)   can request the necessary information from the Internal   Revenue Service (IRS). How to request. After the end of the tax year, send a   signed, written request for the information to the Internal   Revenue Service Center where the parent's return will be   filed. (The IRS can’t process a request received before   the end of the tax year.) It also suggests that you file for an extension for the due date of your return. Include payment for the tax you expect to pay, say by plugging in $200K for parent income as an estimate.  My parents' accountant tells them I do not need it. Well, a piece of software told you that you do, and 3 people on line who collectively qualify as experts documented why. (Note, I am not full of myself. This board operates via the wisdom of crowds. Members DStanley, and Ben Miller, commented and edited to help me form a well documented response that would be tough to argue against.)
13 or 30, the only real difference is that as a minor, you are claimed as a dependent on your parent's return, so you don't have you own exemption. But you do have a standard deduction of $6300 when it comes to earned income. Yes, you'll pay taxes, federal, state, and tax for social security.  There's nothing wrong with paying taxes. In fact, I hope you have to pay a small fortune in tax! That would mean you've made a large fortune, and after taxes, still got to keep a good chunk of it. If your income is minimal, you'll actually pay very little in taxes, not enough to even think about wanting to give away what you can sell. "I made an investing mistake many (eight?) years ago. Specifically, I invested a very large sum of money in a certain triple leveraged ETF (the asset has not yet been sold, but the value has decreased to maybe one 8th or 5th of the original amount). I thought the risk involved was the volatility--I didn't realize that due to the nature of the asset the value would be constantly decreasing towards zero! Anyhow, my question is what to do next?  I would advise you to sell it ASAP. You didn't mention what ETF it is, but chances are you will continue to lose money. The complicating factor is that I have since moved out of the United States and am living abroad (i.e. Japan). I am permanent resident of my host country, I have a steady salary that is paid by a company incorporated in my host country, and pay taxes to the host government. I file a tax return to the U.S. Government each year, but all my income is excluded so I do not pay any taxes. In this way, I do not think that I can write anything off on my U.S. tax return. Also, I have absolutely no idea if I would be able to write off any losses on my Japanese tax return (I've entrusted all the family tax issues to my wife). Would this be possible?  I can't answer this question but you seem to be looking for information on ""cross-border tax harvesting"". If Google doesn't yield useful results, I'd suggest you talk to an accountant who is familiar with the relevant tax codes. Are there any other available options (that would not involve having to tell my wife about the loss, which would be inevitable if I were to go the tax write-off route in Japan)? This is off topic but you should probably have an honest conversation with your wife regardless. If I continue to hold onto this asset the value will decrease lower and lower. Any suggestions as to what to do? See above: close your position ASAP For more information on the pitfalls of leveraged ETFs (FINRA) What happens if I hold longer than one trading day?  While there may be trading and hedging strategies that justify holding these investments longer than a day, buy-and-hold investors with an intermediate or long-term time horizon should carefully consider whether these ETFs are appropriate for their portfolio. As discussed above, because leveraged and inverse ETFs reset each day, their performance can quickly diverge from the performance of the underlying index or benchmark. In other words, it is possible that you could suffer significant losses even if the long-term performance of the index showed a gain." "Besides money and time lost, it is pretty clear that most tax advisors   are not well versed in non-resident taxes. It seems that their main clients are either US residents or H1B   workers (who are required to file as residents). I share your pain on this one. In fact, even for H1B/green card holders or Americans with income/property abroad vast majority of advisers will make mistakes (which may become quite costly). IRS licensing exams for EA/RTRP do not include a single question on non-resident taxation or potential issues, let alone handling treaties. Same goes for the AICPA unified CPA exam (the REG portion of which, in part, deals with taxes). I'm familiar with the recent versions of both exams and I am very disappointed and frustrated by that lack of knowledge requirement in such a crucial area (I am not a licensed tax preparer now though). That said, the issue is very complicated. I went through several advisers until I found the one I can trust to know her stuff, and while at it happened to learn quite a lot about the US tax code (which doesn't make me sleep any better by the least). It is my understanding that preparing a US tax return for a foreign person without a mistake is impossible, but the question is how big is the mistake you're going to make. I had returns prepared by solo working advisers where I found mistakes as ridiculous as arithmetic calculation errors (fired after two seasons), and by big-4 firms where I found mistakes that cost me quite a lot (although by the time I figured that they cost me significant amounts, it was too late to sue or change; fired after 2 seasons as well). As you can see, it is relevant to me as well, and I do not do my own tax returns. I usually ask for the conservative interpretations from my adviser, IRS is very aggressive on enforcement and the penalties, especially on foreigners are draconian (I do not know if it ever went through a judicial review, as I believe some of these penalties are unconstitutional under the 8th amendment, but that's my personal opinion). Bottom line - its hard to find a decent tax adviser, and that's why the good ones are expensive. You get what you pay for. How do I go about locating a CPA/EA who is well versed in non-resident   taxes located in the Los Angeles area (Orange County area is not too   far away either) These professionals are usually active in large metropolitan areas with a lot of foreigners. You should be able to find decent professionals in LA/OC, SF Bay, Seattle, New York, Boston, and other cities and metropolises attracting foreigners. Also, look for those working in the area of a major university.  Specific points: If I find none, can I work with a quaified person who lives in a   different state and have him file my taxes on my behalf   (electronically or via scans going back and forth) Yes. But that person my have a problem representing you in California (in case you're audited), unless he's an EA (licensed by the Federal government, can practice everywhere) or is licensed as a CPA or Attorney by the State of California. Is there a central registry of such quaified people I can view   (preferably with reviews) - akin to ""yellow pages"" IRS is planning on opening one some time this year, but until then - not really. There are some commercial sites claiming to have that, but they're using the FOIA access to the IRS and states' listings, and may not have updated information. They definitely don't have updated license statuses (or any license statuses) or language/experience information. Wouldn't trust them." Can I Send the money back to my personal account of my mother/father in India? Yes you can. Do I need to pay any tax here in US or my parents back in India? There is no tax in India to your parents as it's treated as gift and is tax free between close relatives. In US you would need to pay gift tax if amount is more than USD 16000 a year. See other questions on this site for gift tax rules in US. "What they are doing is wrong. The IRS and the state might not be happy with what they are doing.  One thing you can ask for them to do is to give you a credit card for business and travel expenses. You will still have to submit receipts for expenses, but it will also make it clear to the IRS that these checks are not income. Keep the pay stubs for the year, or the pdf files if they don't give you a physical stub. Pay attention to the YTD numbers on each stub to make sure they aren't sneaking in the expenses as income. If they continue to do this, ask about ownership of the items purchased, since you will be paying the tax shouldn't you own it?  You can in the future tell them ""I was going to buy X like the customer wanted, but I just bought a new washer at home and their wasn't enough room on the credit card. Maybe next month""" Yes, there's a way. I actually wrote a blog post about it. Its a new service from the IRS which allows you pulling your account online. IRS also has an instruction page just for this case here. "As long as you didn't ""forget"" to report any income with regards to these accounts, you should be fine doing that. See more information and specific instructions on this IRS site." Your parents would file their taxes as they normally do. It would be as if your parents were landlords renting a room to your girlfriend. She would not be claimed on their taxes. If your girlfriend pays rent to your parents (through her parents or otherwise) it would be claimed as rental income. The household size wouldn't change because even though your girlfriend is living with your parents they are not financially responsible for her. Example: A landlord would not claim renters as dependents or in household size on their taxes.