I received a letter from the IRS indicating that I may not have been eligible to claim my daughter as a dependent because someone else claimed her

[TomYoung · Accepted solution]

You might as well sit down right now and figure out who gets to claim your daughter as a dependent.

If you daughter took the personal exemption - which she probably shouldn't have done - the she needs to amend her income tax return.  If your wife claimed her as a deduction then you need to figure out who actually gets to claim her.

Here's the IRS's rules:

1.The child must be your son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, brother, sister, half brother, half sister, stepbrother, stepsister, or a descendant of any of them.

2.The child must be (a) under age 19 at the end of the year and younger than you (or your spouse if filing jointly), (b) under age 24 at the end of the year, a student, and younger than you (or your spouse if filing jointly), or (c) any age if permanently and totally disabled.

3.The child must have lived with you for more than half of the year.*

4.The child must not have provided more than half of his or her own support for the year.

5.The child must not be filing a joint return for the year (unless that joint return is filed only to claim a refund of withheld income tax or estimated tax paid).

* time at college is usually deemed to be a "temporary abscence" and is included as time the child lived with you.

If the child meets the rules to be a qualifying child of more than one person, only one person can actually treat the child as a qualifying child. See "Qualifying Child of More Than One Person"  here

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf#en_US_2016_publink1000220917

to find out which person is the person entitled to claim the child as a qualifying child.

Tom Young

[Hal_Al]

Where was she living before she went off to college? That's her residence. And it sounds like that is her mother's home. You can only claim her if the mother agrees not to. The fact that you provided more support than the mother is not relevant

[macuser_22]

I do not believe that the mother can agree to that since agreements do not apply to emancipated children over the age of 18 in most states, but 21 in all states.   The half year rule is the deciding factor for an adult Qualifying Child.  You simply cannot claim an adult 21 year old as a Qualifying Child if you cannot pass the residency test regardless of what you agree to.