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IRS Form 1040 is often called the "long form," because it is designed to account for every option in filing your federal income taxes. Unlike Form 1040EZ, which is a simplified version available to certain groups of taxpayers, the standard 1040 and its attachments can be complicated and time-consuming.
You must file your income taxes using Form 1040 if any of the following are true.
- You had $400 or more in self-employment income.
- Your taxable income is $100,000 or more.
- You choose to itemize your deductions.
- You received capital gain distributions (e.g., from a mutual fund) or nontaxable dividends.
- You had taxable gain from the sale of your home or other property, barter income, alimony income, taxable refunds of state or local income taxes, or self-employment income (including farm income).
- You sold or exchanged capital assets or business property.
- You had any of the following adjustments to gross income: payments to a medical savings account; moving expenses; payments for self-employed health insurance; one-half of the self-employment tax; payments to a Keogh, SEP or SIMPLE retirement plan; penalty for early withdrawal of savings; alimony paid; certain required repayments of supplemental unemployment benefits; jury duty pay turned over to your employer; qualified performing artists' expenses; or other allowable adjustments to income.
- Your Form W-2 shows uncollected FICA tax on tips or group-term life insurance over $50,000 in Box 12.
- You received $20 or more in tips in any one month and did not report all of them to your employer.
- You received or paid accrued interest on securities transferred between interest payment dates.
- You receive a distribution from a foreign trust, or you had a bank, securities, or other financial account in a foreign country at any time during the year.
- You have to recapture an investment tax credit, a low-income housing credit, a qualified electric vehicle credit, or an Indian employment credit you claimed in a previous year.
- You have to recapture tax on the disposition of a home purchased with a federally subsidized mortgage.
- You have to pay tax on excess golden parachute payments.
- You claim any of the following tax credits: mortgage interest credit, foreign tax credit, any general business credit, credit for prior years' AMT, credit for fuel from a nonconventional source, credit for federal tax on fuels, residential property energy tax credit, the regulated investment company credit, and/or the adoption credit.
- You file any of the following forms: Form 2555, Foreign Earned Income; Form 2555-EZ, Foreign Earned Income Exclusion; Form 4563, Exclusion of Income for Bona Fide Residents of American Samoa; Form 4970, Tax on Accumulation Distribution of Trusts; Form 4972, Tax on Lump-Sum Distributions; Form 5329, Additional Taxes Attributable to Qualified Retirement Plans (Including IRAs), Annuities, Modified Endowment Contracts, and MSAs; Form 8271, Investor Reporting of Tax Shelter Registration Number; Form 8814, Parents' Election to Report Child's Interest and Dividends; Form 8853, Medical Savings Accounts and Long-Term Care Insurance Contracts.
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