I’ve read that if you file your kids as dependents but
someone else has, the e-file will be rejected, but you can still do your taxes
on paper and mail them, but get a letter from the IRS stating that those
dependents were already claimed and ask for proof of who the rightful one to
file is.
I’m researching this, because my mother in law had filed our
daughter without permission years ago, and my e-file was rejected. When we
confronted her, she let me use a credit card of hers to get what I would’ve
used the tax return on, so we resolved it by ourselves. And I’ve been filing
the children each year after, since the other parent is on SSDI and cannot file
taxes.
The issue this year is that we just recently separated. This
won’t be your classic case of two parents fighting over who can file the kids,
so I doubt I need that form 8832. I am still the one who has provided for the
children the whole year, and of course both of us parents and the kids were living
together; however, the now ex-mother-in-law has also spent lots of money on
them as she makes more than I do and spoils her grandchildren with needless
things. And now that we’re separated, I have a sneaking suspicion that the
grandmother will try to claim both our children so she’ll have the money to
repay debt she’s incurred (the reason she filed 1 of our kids without
permission before).
The kids have never lived with her, and when we get a court
order for visitation, they will be split between the parents’ homes, and I will
still be supporting them as well as the other parent, NOT the grandmother. She
will probably try thinking she is in the right since she is the mother of the
parent who doesn’t file taxes. And even moving forward, I will still be the
only one of the immediate parents who can file taxes, and the children will be
spending half their time with.
So if she tries claiming them as I think she will, and the
IRS asks for proof, what proof will be needed? Do they know who the immediate
parents are, and that the mother-in-law in question does not have custody of the
children at her home? How do I prepare myself if that happens?
