My wife and I had a nephew and nieces placed in foster care with us in July 2024, and they lived with us for the rest of 2024. They had been living with an unrelated foster parent for all of 2023 and 2024 until they were placed with us. They are US citizens with SSN's and meet all of the other requirements to be a qualifying child. By the IRS instructions, it appears that they are "qualifying children" for us based on the foster care placement this year, but they also are qualifying children for the former foster family since they were with that family for more than half of 2024.
Is there any problem with us trying to claim the child tax credit for them, especially if the former foster family also tries to claim a tax credit for them? For the tie breaking rules, there is no way for us to determine if we or the other foster family has the higher AGI.
