Education

To be a qualifying child dependent 

• Your child must be under age 19 or, if a full-time student, under age 24. There is no age limit if your child is permanently and totally disabled.
• Your child must live with you for more than half the year, but several exceptions apply.
• Your child may have a job, but that job cannot provide more than half of her support.
• This requirement commonly applies to children of divorced parents. Here you must use the “tie breaker rules,” which are found in IRS Publication 501. These rules establish income, parentage and residency requirements for claiming a child.

To be a qualifying relative:

• Your relative must live at your residence all year or be on the list of “relatives who do not live with you” in Publication 501. About 30 types of relatives are on this list.
• our relative cannot have a gross income of more than $4,300 in 2020 and be claimed by you as a dependent.
• You must provide more than half of your relative’s total support each year.
• You have to be the only person claiming them. This means you can’t claim the same person twice, once as a qualifying relative and again as a qualifying child. It also means you can’t claim a relative—say a cousin—if someone else, such as his parents, also claim him.