The easiest thing to do is fill out a dependency support worksheet. This gives you a clear idea of who contributed what to his support.
Support Worksheet
Support Test (To Be a Qualifying Child)
To meet this test, the child can't have provided more than half of his or her own support for the year.
This test is different from the support test to be a qualifying relative, which is described later. However, to see what is or isn't support, see Support Test (To Be a Qualifying Relative), later. If you aren't sure whether a child provided more than half of his or her own support, you may find Worksheet 2 helpful.
Example.
You provided $4,000 toward your 16-year-old son's support for the year. He has a part-time job and provided $6,000 to his own support. He provided more than half of his own support for the year. He isn't your qualifying child.
Foster care payments and expenses.
Payments you receive for the support of a foster child from a child placement agency are considered support provided by the agency. Similarly, payments you receive for the support of a foster child from a state or county are considered support provided by the state or county.
If you aren't in the trade or business of providing foster care and your unreimbursed out-of-pocket expenses in caring for a foster child were mainly to benefit an organization qualified to receive deductible charitable contributions, the expenses are deductible as charitable contributions but aren't considered support you provided. For more information about the deduction for charitable contributions, see Pub. 526. If your unreimbursed expenses aren't deductible as charitable contributions, they may qualify as support you provided.
If you are in the trade or business of providing foster care, your unreimbursed expenses aren't considered support provided by you.
Example 1.
Lauren, a foster child, lived with Mr. and Mrs. Smith for the last 3 months of the year. The Smiths cared for Lauren because they wanted to adopt her (although she had not been placed with them for adoption). They didn't care for her as a trade or business or to benefit the agency that placed her in their home. The Smiths' unreimbursed expenses aren't deductible as charitable contributions but are considered support they provided for Lauren.
Example 2.
You provided $3,000 toward your 10-year-old foster child's support for the year. The state government provided $4,000, which is considered support provided by the state, not by the child. See Support provided by the state (welfare, food benefits, housing, etc.), later. Your foster child didn't provide more than half of her own support for the year.
Scholarships.
A scholarship received by a child who is a student isn't taken into account in determining whether the child provided more than half of his or her own support.
TANF and other governmental payments.
Under proposed Treasury regulations, if you received Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) payments or other similar payments and used the payment to support another person, those payments are considered support you provided for that person, rather than support provided by the government or other third party.
