Q. I feel that he cheated me out of my earned income credit. Is there anything that I can do?
A. No. For two reasons.
1. When the children live in a household with more than one relative, it's basically optional, which relative claims the child (if the non parent [grandparent in this case] has a higher income than the parent). Since, you didn't try to claim them yourself, at the time, you essentially consented to the grandparent claiming them.
2. "This has been many years ago". There's a 3 year limit to filing amended returns.
Since the grandparent had the higher income, it's almost certain that he got more tax benefit from claiming them than you did. So, overall, the family came out better doing it that way.
If there are circumsatnces where that might not be the case (e.g. grandparent didn't qualify for EIC), it might have been worthwhile to crunch the numbers to see who shoulda claimed the kids. It may have even be that you should have split the children (that is allowed). If it's been more than 3 years ago, there's nothing you can do now.
