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Rules for Form 1040
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 $50,000 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, qualified electric vehicle credit, or the regulated investment company 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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