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Receiving Disability and filing taxes

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zeuss

Member
What is the name of your state? Michigan. But I have a question about Indiana. If a person is receiving monthly disability payments from the State of Indiana, is this considered non-taxable income when it comes to filing your Federal Income Tax return? They would not be able to claim any income at all?? The same rule may apply for all states, I don't know.
 


tigger22472

Senior Member
lbmarie said:
I live in Pa and had to pay tax on my Social Security disabilty benefits.

The federal law is you are to add other household taxable income and HALF of the disability payments. If it exceeds a certain amount (do not remember the total, that would have to come from SS) then SSDI must be claimed, otherwise it does not.
 

zeuss

Member
Michigan. The disability I am talking about is for being medically unable to work. I guess that would be Social Security Disability. He has been turned down two other times for diability over the last 2 years but has finally gotten approved. The short story version: I am divorced, my X lives in Indiana, hasn't worked for the past 2 years. He has Hepatitis C and extensive liver damage. He is on some medicine with bad side effects, so he is unable to work. He has just been approved for monthly disability payments. He has no other income. Our son who is 16 moved down to live with him the middle of August. His father wants to claim him on his income taxes if he can get some money out of it - his exact words to me. I was told that it wont benefit him to do that because his SS Disability is not taxable. I have claimed our son for 16 years, I am very low income. He will be getting monthly checks double what I make in a month. His story is that he will be receiving two years worth of payments in the month of December. Will this also count as alot of income for 2005 and over the limit where he will have to claim? If he has no taxable income can he claim head of household and get the deduction for our son so he will get basically "free" money from the government when I am the one that has worked all year? I am really confused with this kind of information and can't afford to get an attorney since I have paid everything 100% for the past two years, including all medical expenses for our son.
 

tigger22472

Senior Member
You are correct. He will not benefit. Again, the only way SSDI is taxable is if half of that money is added to other household monies and comes to a total (which is rather high actually considering it is SSDI) set by SS. You however will NOT get as much back as you intend to either however. Since your son does not live with you and didn't for 12 full months you will not be able to claim Earned Income Credit, however you would be able to claim Head of Household claiming the child as a deduction.
 
I had never heard anything about claiming SSDI income on taxes. I was told that this income was not taxable. My ex became paralyzed 2 years after we were married. I do remember putting his income on the forms but it never hurt the taxes. It must be a high amount as tigger stated. I also live in PA. I am in the process of filing for SSDI myself. This would be good to know.
 

tigger22472

Senior Member
sunshinee50 said:
I had never heard anything about claiming SSDI income on taxes. I was told that this income was not taxable. My ex became paralyzed 2 years after we were married. I do remember putting his income on the forms but it never hurt the taxes. It must be a high amount as tigger stated. I also live in PA. I am in the process of filing for SSDI myself. This would be good to know.
I want to say that with other income and half the SSDI it has to be over 30K, before taxes are figured with it, which isn't a HUGE amount but is when you live off next to nothing.
 

zeuss

Member
Thank you for all of your good advise. My son just moved down to live with dad this past August (3 months ago) so I've done some counting for 2005 and he lived with me 6 months and 2 days this year. This is counting the Thanksgiving Holiday coming up and a week at Christmas. I still have physical custody of my son, this is just suppose to be a trial period. If he decides to stay and I give him custody I don't have a problem with him claiming him next year. I don't think anyway until I find out all of the laws. I also figured his yearly amount that he will be receiving and it's under 30K a year. The dad has no other household income at all except the checks that my son will be getting in both of there names and this will still be under $30k a year. So the only reason that he would want to claim our son is to possibly be able to claim head of household and have one dependant credit in order to receive some kind of a free refund from the government that he didn't work for in 2005, I did. Can he do thatI am sorry if I sound bitter but this is someone who would sell his own mother if he could make a good enough profit from her. Over the last 10 years he has tried suing different people about 5 times for huge amounts but always lost, never gone over and above his very low child support amount for anything, when he pays it at all.
 

tigger22472

Senior Member
zeuss said:
Thank you for all of your good advise. My son just moved down to live with dad this past August (3 months ago) so I've done some counting for 2005 and he lived with me 6 months and 2 days this year. This is counting the Thanksgiving Holiday coming up and a week at Christmas. I still have physical custody of my son, this is just suppose to be a trial period. If he decides to stay and I give him custody I don't have a problem with him claiming him next year. I don't think anyway until I find out all of the laws. I also figured his yearly amount that he will be receiving and it's under 30K a year. The dad has no other household income at all except the checks that my son will be getting in both of there names and this will still be under $30k a year. So the only reason that he would want to claim our son is to possibly be able to claim head of household and have one dependant credit in order to receive some kind of a free refund from the government that he didn't work for in 2005, I did. Can he do thatI am sorry if I sound bitter but this is someone who would sell his own mother if he could make a good enough profit from her. Over the last 10 years he has tried suing different people about 5 times for huge amounts but always lost, never gone over and above his very low child support amount for anything, when he pays it at all.
No he can't do that. And on top of that it's not the total it's HALF the total of SS plus household so even if HE made 30K only 15 would be considered and it's still not over the amount to pay taxes on. He did not work and did not have any taxable income.
 

Whyte Noise

Senior Member
SSDI and SSI are NOT counted as income for tax purposes when you're filing a return with nothing but those 2 things as your sole source of income. It "may" be counted on a joint return if, like tigger said, the wage earner's income PLUS 1/2 of the SSDI receipients income meet a certain level.

Examples:

I'm disabled and single. My only source of income per month is my SSDI. I have 1 child living with me. I'm not able to file a tax return, claim my daughter, or get EIC for her because SSDI isn't "earned" income.

I'm disabled and married. My SSDI benefits and my husband's earnings combined do not meet the IRS threshhold that says my SSDI income is counted as earnings. We file a joint return, only his income is counted, we get EIC for the daughter living with us.

Hope that helps explain it.

Also... to get EIC the child has to have lived in your household for 6 months or more, not 12 (sorry tigger). If your child lived with you until August, the child was in your home for 8 months. 8 months is longer than 6 months. YOU are the only one entitled to claim the EIC for the child, regardless of where he lives now.
 

lbmarie

Member
I just want to make sure I understand. If you're at a certain level of household income where then you have to claim your SSDI, then you claim half and not the total amount of SSDI? Thank you.
 

tigger22472

Senior Member
lbmarie said:
I just want to make sure I understand. If you're at a certain level of household income where then you have to claim your SSDI, then you claim half and not the total amount of SSDI? Thank you.

You take all OTHER household (joint income from spouse or whatever) income that is taxable, then you add 1/2 the SSDI. If that totals over the amount set by SSA then you add it and it becomes taxable. If it does not then it does not count.
 

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