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Can I claim my sister as someone I support if I pay 100% of the rent & provide her transportation needs 100%? She pays utilities & buys groceries. She’s on disability.

She cannot afford to live on her own or pay rent since she gets disability which isn’t enough to cover rent and utilities.
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2 Replies
DavidD66
Expert Alumni

Can I claim my sister as someone I support if I pay 100% of the rent & provide her transportation needs 100%? She pays utilities & buys groceries. She’s on disability.

Maybe.  Here is a checklist for determining whether your sister (or other relative) qualifies as your dependent:

  • Do they live with you? 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.
  • Do they make less than $4,300 in 2020? Your relative cannot have a gross income of more than $4,300 in 2020 and be claimed by you as a dependent.
  • Do you financially support them? You must provide more than half of your relative’s total support each year.
  • Are you 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.
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Hal_Al
Level 15

Can I claim my sister as someone I support if I pay 100% of the rent & provide her transportation needs 100%? She pays utilities & buys groceries. She’s on disability.

Probably yes. 

There are two types of dependents, "Qualifying Children"(QC) and standard ("Qualifying Relative" in IRS parlance even though they don't have to actually be related).  What DavidD66 describes is the Qualifying Relative Rules.  Because of her disability, your sister probably qualifies as your dependent under the QC rules.

 

There is no income limit for a QC but there is an age limit (or disability status) a relationship test and residence test. Only a QC qualifies a taxpayer for the Earned Income Credit. They are interrelated but the rules are different for each.

The support test is different for each type. The support test, for a QC, is only that the child didn't provide more than half his own support. The support test for a Qualifying Relative is that the taxpayer provided more than half the relative's support.

.A child closely related (Sibling counts) to a taxpayer can be a “Qualifying Child (QC)” dependent, regardless of the child's income, if:

  1. He is under age 19, or under 24 if a full time student for at least 5 months of the year, or  is totally & permanently disabled
  2. He did not provide more than 1/2 his own support
  3. He lived with the relative (including temporary absences) for more than half the year
  4. He is younger than the relative (not applicable for a disabled child)
  5. If the child meets the rules to be a qualifying child of more than one person, you must be the person entitled to claim the child as a qualifying child (this essentially means that you have the parent’s permission to claim the child, if the child also lived with the parent more than half the year)
  6. If the parents of a child can claim the child as a qualifying child but no parent so claims the child, no one else can claim the child as a qualifying child unless that person's adjusted gross income (AGI) is higher than the highest AGI of any of the child's parents who can claim the child.

See full dependent rules at: https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Family/Rules-for-Claiming-a-Dependent-on-Your-Tax-Ret...

 

 

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