@Stikman wrote:
Whoa! My daughter has never filed a return so she most definitely did not commit fraud.
The point here is that if the child qualifies to be claimed as a dependent, they must check the box on their tax return that says "I can be claimed as a dependent by another taxpayer." It is not mandatory for the person who could claim them to actually claim them, but the child must indicate "yes, I can be claimed." For 2020 and 2021, if a child did not click that box, they got a stimulus payment in their own name, and that is probably tax fraud, although whether the IRS will catch anyone for it is anyone's guess. No one's saying you did that, but it's a thing that happened.
Now as far as student loan forgiveness is concerned, no one has any idea how it will actually be administered. It is certainly legal from an IRS point of view for you to amend your return and remove your child, if that will help your eligibility. You aren't required to claim them even if you could. But as you know, the student aid system has its own way of determining whether a child is a dependent and does not always rely on tax returns, so there's no way to know what will happen with the forgiveness program until they actually announce rules and print the forms.
And that's assuming the program isn't overruled by a court for being an impermissible extension of executive power not supported by the law.
