Was just reading through this thread for my own educational purposes, and one thing I see is that a lot of assumptions are being made that, if wrong could result in an incorrect tax filing and potential legal issues down the road. So some things really need to be clarified.
- Are you "legally" married to the mother on Dec 31 of the tax year? If not then,
- Are you "legally" separated from the mother? If so, since when?
- If there is a court order of any type designating who is the custodial parent, that court order is basically worthless and meaningless to the IRS when it comes to taxes. For determining the custodial parent (for taxes) the IRS has their own rules which can only be overridden by a federal judge. Since federal judges don't deal with custody cases, that's not going to happen.
In the case of divorced or separated parents, please see <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="
https://www.irs.gov/faqs/filing-requirements-status-dependents-exemptions/dependents-exemptions/depe...> for who the IRS says is the custodial parent. There's a link to IRS Publication 504 on that page. Take that link to get the finer details.
