Q. My child is homeless and I provide money for food, clothing, etc. he has no income. Can that be considered support?
A. Yes. But then you need to determine, if what you provided was more than half his support for the year.
The IRS has a worksheet that can be used to help with the support calculation. See: http://apps.irs.gov/app/vita/content/globalmedia/teacher/worksheet_for_determining_support_4012.pdf
Per the other reply, there are additional rules to determine if you can claim him as a dependent. Since he is closely related, he did not have to live with you, at any time during the year, to be an Other (qualifying Relative) dependent. He cannot, most likely, be a "qualifying Child" dependent, because he did not live with you for more than half the year.
There are two types of dependents, "Qualifying Children"(QC) and Other ("Qualifying Relative" in IRS parlance even though they don't have to actually be related). There is no income limit for a QC but there is an age limit and student status test, a relationship test and a residence test. Only a QC qualifies a taxpayer for the Earned Income Credit and the Child Tax Credit. The Other dependent (qualifying relative) credit is worth (up to) $500 per dependent and is non-refundable. That is, it can only be used to reduce an actual tax liability.
