@lcmcap wrote:
My ex tried to claim my college age child the year he started college. I pay for all of his college and claimed him on my taxes that year, along with my other child. The IRS corrected his return. Do I have to amend if we had an order requiring that we alternate dependents? He says I have to. I’ve always been the custodial parent.
Let's start over.
The general case is that only the custodial parent can claim the child as a dependent. The non-custodial parent can claim the child as a dependent only if the custodial parent gives the non-custodial parent a signed form 8332. If the custodial parent does not do this, the IRS will not award the dependent to the non-custodial parent even if the non-custodial parent has a court order. The non-custodial parent can go to court and ask the custodial parent to be forced to sign the form or be punished in some other way for refusing to sign, but the IRS will take no action without form 8332.
(Incidentally, if your ex has claimed the child in certain years and you have not been using for 8332, the only way the ex can do that is by falsely claiming the child lived with them. You may have also been depriving yourself of important tax benefits like head of household status or earned income credit, which always go to the custodial parent even if the non-custodial parent claimed the child with form 8332.)
Now, to your specific question:
For the year your child turned 19 (and was 18 for the rest of the year), this procedure is no longer valid. The custodial parent can't give a valid form 8332 allowing the non-custodial parent to claim the child, even if they wanted to. Even if a court orders the custodial parent to let the non-custodial parent claim the 19 year old child, the custodial parent can't do this because a state court can't legally order you to violate federal law.
So for the year in question, the only parent who can claim the child is the parent where the child lived more than half the year, or where the child would have lived if the child was not away at college. If that is you, and you already claimed your child, you don't have to do anything. The court order requiring you to alternate dependents is invalid after the child turns 18.
