It depends who lived with the child more in 2016. If you both qualify, see the tiebreaker rules below until you reach the one qualification that rules one of you out.
In
general, to be a taxpayer’s Qualifying Child, a person must satisfy four tests:
Relationship — the taxpayer’s child or
stepchild (whether by blood or adoption), foster child, sibling or
step-sibling, or a descendant of one of these.
Residence — has the same principal residence as
the taxpayer for more than half the tax year. Exceptions apply, in certain
cases, for children of divorced or separated parents, kidnapped children,
temporary absences, and for children who were born or died during the year.
Age — must be under the age of 19 at the end of
the tax year, or under the age of 24 if a full-time student for at least five
months of the year, or be permanently and totally disabled at any time during
the year.
Support — did not provide more than one-half of
his/her own support for the year.
Tiebreaker
rules. To
determine which person can treat the child as a qualifying child to claim the
six tax benefits just listed, the following tiebreaker rules apply.
- If only one of the persons is the child's parent, the
child is treated as the qualifying child of the parent.
- If the parents file a joint return together and can claim
the child as a qualifying child, the child is treated as the qualifying
child of the parents.
- If the parents don't file a joint return together but both parents
claim the child as a qualifying child, the IRS will treat the child as the
qualifying child of the parent with whom the child lived
for the longer period of time during the year. If the child lived with each parent for
the same amount of time, the IRS will treat the child as the qualifying
child of the parent who had the higher adjusted gross income (AGI) for the year.
- If no parent can claim the child as a qualifying child, the child is
treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year.
- If a parent can claim the child as a qualifying child but no
parent does so
claim the child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who
had the highest AGI
for the year, but only if that person's AGI is higher than the highest
AGI of any of the child's parents who can claim the child. If the child's parents file
a joint return with each other, this rule can be applied by treating
the parents' total AGI as divided evenly between them.
