What is the minimum amount of interest that you must claim when doing taxes?

[Mahal]

There are two answers to this question:

1) Congress has declared that you shall with pain and suffering report every stinking penny of money you get during the year regardless of the source. That includes ill-gotten gains, money you find laying on the ground, gifts, wages, tips, everything. (Unless they have passed laws that exclude certain items, such as the first $11,000 in gifts, insurance payoffs, social security and other pensions.) All of your interest is always taxable unless it's from a tax free bond.

2) When I worked with the IRS, I was informed by one of their trainers that if your total interest for the year is less than $10, don't worry about it.

In reality, you have to make another $25 before you go up one box on the tax tables. If you find yourself at the bottom of one of those boxes, and you report $22 in interest, your taxes won't go up, so it makes no difference whether you do or not, and the IRS is loath to audit low income people anyway.

Why should they pay an auditor $75 per hour to audit someone who won't end up with a tax penalty worth their time? They LOVE corporations and rich people, especially with that AMT secret weapon!