Publications for Military Personnel & Students

WASHINGTON - Two specially designed Internal Revenue Service publications are now available, one for military personnel and one for high school and college students. The new publications focus on the special tax situations and questions of concern to these taxpayers.

Publication 3, "Tax Information for Military Personnel," discusses such topics as: -- items included in gross income, such as basic pay, special pay for aviation career incentives and hazardous duty, bonuses for re-enlistment and payments for accrued leave; -- items excluded from gross income, such as certain allowances for living, family, moving, travel and death expenses; and -- dependency exemptions, sale of a home and itemized deductions.

Publication 4, "Student's Guide to Federal Income Tax," explains the federal tax laws of particular interest to high school and college students. It helps students decide if their income from wages, tips, scholarships and fellowships is taxable, if they should have tax withheld from their pay and if they should file a tax return. It also contains sample filled-in W-4 withholding forms and tax returns.

The publication for students was developed, in part, as a result of a suggestion by a student participating in an IRS focus group discussion on how IRS can make its publications easier to understand. The IRS also decided that a publication focusing on tax issues affecting military personnel could simplify the task of finding answers to tax questions for these taxpayers.

The IRS said that while these two publications do not cover all tax issues for students and military personnel, most of these taxpayers will find the answers to their tax questions.

The IRS publishes more than 100 tax publications, which are available free from the IRS by calling 1-809-424-3676. The most popular ones are listed in the tax forms packages. Students and military personnel who want more detailed information than what is in Publications 3 and 4 can order Publication 17, "Your Federal Income Tax."

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