I am asking this question for my daughter who I am helping with her taxes. She just efiled her federal return a couple days ago and it was rejected as one of the dependents on her return had already been claimed on another return. She suspected right away that her estranged husband had fraudulently claimed two of her four children on his return which was confirmed. My daughter is still married but they have not lived in the same household for several years. My daughter has been filing as head of household the last few years and has been claiming all of her children as dependents with no problem up until now. None of the dependent children have lived with her husband in 2021. They have always lived with my daughter at the same address. My daughter is the custodial parent by definition and provides their sole support. The husband is supposed to pay child support but does not pay anything. I have read the instructions as to what to do in the identity theft section on the IRS web site. It says to mail in the 2021 return with documentation showing the children lived with her for more than half the year (they lived with her the entire year). I have read where this could delay processing of her return by weeks or months and thus delay her refund which she badly needs. Is this true? Is there anything we can do to speed this up? I did read in the forum where one of the experts mentioned that in this situation the IRS would go ahead and send the refund out to her and then sort out which spouse has to return any refunds with penalties and interest (her husband in this case). I did see on the IRS web site that there is an IRS form to report tax fraud. Is this something my daughter should do explaining that her estranged husband fraudulently claimed two of her dependents? Would that speed up getting this problem corrected and my daughter getting her refund?
