When unmarried parents live together, the 2nd parent should not enter the child, at all, on her tax return or in TTax.
This needs to be made more clear to the user in the instructions. Turbo Tax asking the unmarried user if they've had a child within the past year, but secretly requiring them to select 'No', makes them feel like they are lying, which isn't a good business strategy and a dangerous game to play with the IRS.
The same thing happened to me saying that I qualified for a non-dependent EIC, which I thought meant I qualified for an EIC based on my wages last year after having to quit my job to stay at home full time with the child. At which point, my taxes were rejected claiming I was trying to claim my child, which I was not. Answering all of the questions truthfully that Turbo Tax asks regarding having a child, puts the user in a position where they accidentally claim the child they are trying not to claim.
We are an unmarried couple living together full time and have a verbal agreement as to who claims the child on their taxes. Thankfully, he did his taxes before me so he was able to get the child tax credits without issue. I am just disappointed because now I'm no longer getting back enough projected money to put into an emergency fund and start a college savings plan. At least I'll have enough money coming back to buy the child new clothes that fit when clothing becomes considered essential again.
