While many students may think that April 15th is just the day of SAT testing, it is also tax day. Filing taxes is something that most students have many questions about, so let’s go through the steps of filing taxes.

Do I Even Need to File Taxes?

Maybe. In theory, everyone who received money in the past year has to pay taxes. However, if your income was under the standard deduction, your tax payment would be $0. For 2025, the minimum deduction is $15,750–if you made less than this, you don’t have to file taxes. If you did, then you do or else face a legal penalty from the IRS.

However, even if you made under this year’s standard minimum deduction, you may still want to file taxes. Why? Your employer might have withheld taxes from your paycheck, and if you don’t own any taxes, you get all that money back… but only if you file.

STEP ONE: Locate Your Tax Paperwork

To file taxes, some important documents are going to be needed. The most important is your W2, which your employer should give you or mail to you by January 31.  Your W2 includes:

• Your employee identification number, which is given to you by the government
• Your employer’s identification number, which is a nine digit number that is assigned to the IRS to businesses and corporations operating in the US
• How much you made at that employer over the past year
• How much money the state and federal government has withheld (already collected) from your pay

You will need a W2 from every place you worked last year. If you did not receive a W2 from their employer, you need to use IRS Form 4852, along with the final pay stub or bank statements to estimate the income and withholdings. You may also request a Wage and Income Transcript from the IRS.

In addition to your W2, you will need to know your Social Security number, bank account and routing numbers, state driver’s license number, and your IRS PIN if you’ve ever set one up with the IRS (this mainly happens after someone’s identity is stolen).

For those who are college-bound, know that colleges will also send you their version of a W2 called a 1098-T, which shows how much you paid in tuition for classes. This is deductible from your income and can save you on tax payments. You may even get a 1098-T for college classes you’ve taken in high school depending on how you paid for that class–both Aims Community College and University of Colorado have 1098-T forms available for P-TECH classes and CU Succeed classes, respectively. To access them, you must log in to your student portal.

Now that you have your paperwork…

STEP TWO: Get Your Parent to Do It

Seriously. If your parent or guardian doesn’t do their own taxes and uses a tax prep service like H&R Block or TurboTax, those services will usually complete and file a dependent’s taxes for free as part of the parents’ taxes. Talk to your parents and see if you are covered by their bundle.

For anyone that is unsure if they are a dependent or what a dependent even is, a dependent is a person who relies on another taxpayer for financial support. To be eligible for being a dependent, you must be under 24, not married, and either a U.S. citizen, U.S. nationals, U.S. residents, or resident of Mexico or Canada. If you go to Frederick High, you are almost definitely someone’s dependent. In fact, most college students remain as dependents on their parent’s taxes if they live at home or live in on-campus housing for only part of the year.

Now, if you have to file your own taxes…

STEP THREE: Find Free File Software for Your Federal Return

Some popular free file softwares for taxes include TurboTax and H&R Block. However, both only offer free file for simple tax situations that use the basic 1040 form. While this will cover 90% of students, you will need a paid tax service if you have your own registered business, stock investments in your name, or are over 18 and own property.

To file your Federal tax return, start by filling out every prompt step-by-step.

For income, you will need all the information on your W2, and you may have the ability to upload or scan your W2 and have the tax software fill the forms out for you (if you do this, double check that it entered all the numbers correctly). Make sure to enter in all your income, so if you have multiple W2s, all of them need to be included. You also don’t have to list gifts of money you received unless you received more than $19,000. You also do not need to do anything on your taxes if your parents gave you a car this year (though they need to file Form 709 on their taxes if the care is worth more than $19,000).

For deductions, the only ones you may be eligible for are tuition (from the 1098-T form that was already mentioned) or the green vehicle tax credits if you bought a new electric car this year. You can also deduct last years car’s registration fees from your taxes–the amount is listed on the back of your registration slip.

Once your taxes are finished, print them out or safe a PDF of the, both for the next step and in case you get audited in the next seven years by the IRS. If you are receiving a tax refund, you can enter in your bank information and get it directly deposited into your account within three weeks. If you get an offer to get a refund gift card immediately from your tax software, don’t do it! If you look at the fine print, they take part of your refund and you will not get the full amount.

STEP FOUR: Free File Your State Return at CO.gov

After the federal taxes are completed, then the state taxes must be complete. It is essentially the same process, but the state of Colorado picks up where your federal taxes left off, as you need to fill out your taxable income from Form 1040.

Once you are ready to file, go to the Colorado Department of Revenue‘s website and select the link to file your taxes. This is the only way to file your state taxes for free–both TurboTax and H&R Block charge to file state taxes.

Like with your Federal tax return, fill out every prompt step-by-step. In addition to the forms you needed for your Federal taxes, you will also be prompted at some point to enter your driver’s license number to prove you are a Colorado resident.

If you didn’t line in Colorado for all of 2025 and you made money by working a job in another state, you will have to file taxes in that state as well. Filining taxes in multiple states is a scenario where paying for the tax software to do the work for you would pay off.