how is kiddie tax reported 
there are generally two ways to go about reporting a child s unearned income the first option can be used when the child s only income is interest and dividend income including capital gains and totals less than 11 000 if that s not the case the second route will have to be taken presumably with the help of the parent 2history of the kiddie taxthe tax law originally only covered children under 14 years of age children under the age of 14 cannot legally work which means that any income they received usually came from dividends or interest from bonds however the tax authorities realized that some guardians would take advantage of the situation and then give stock gifts to their older 16 to 18 year old children 3the tax cuts and jobs act of 2017 temporarily changed the kiddie tax to use the tax rates that apply to estates and trusts rather than the tax rate of the child s parents 4 however the further consolidated appropriations act 2020 retroactively changed it back to the parent s tax rate for 2018 and 2019 returns taxpayers could use either the estate tax rates or the parent s take rate for calculating the kiddie tax for 2020 and beyond the parent s tax rate applies 52who is subject to kiddie tax the kiddie tax is imposed on individuals under 18 years old or dependent full time students under 24 years old whose investment and unearned income is higher than an annually determined threshold 