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I filed my foster care children on my taxes, now the bio parents are making waves.. who has the right? We had them almost 8 months and placed by dept human services.

We filed our foster kids on our taxes.  The state took custody March 27 (2018), but they have been in our home since March 8 when they were removed from their bios home.  Now the bios want to file the kids on their taxes but they have not had them since March 8.  We have supported them since they came here, albeit bios provide a bill of groceries (less than 300.00) using food stamps and a couple boxes of diapers...they are claiming they supported them.  What case do we have and are we in the right or wrong?  There were 4 children.  We got emergency foster (custody / care) March 27, 2018 and had them until Oct. 22, 2018.  We had them removed and they were placed in other homes (first separated) then with the bio moms mother... If they were with us the majority of the year, who has legal right to claim on taxes?  Currently, the bios still do not have custody.

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I filed my foster care children on my taxes, now the bio parents are making waves.. who has the right? We had them almost 8 months and placed by dept human services.

To prove your legal right to claim your foster children on your tax return, consider the following:

Foster children fall under the definition of Qualifying Child for the purposes of claiming them on your return.  In addition, you need to show the children spent 183 nights or more in your home.  There is a "Support Worksheet" in Publication 501 (the link is below) to prove you provided over half the support. In addition to the general rules of citizenship, not claiming their self on a return, and not filing a joint return with someone else, you must be able to answer "yes" to all of the following questions:

  • Are they related to you? The child can be your son, daughter, stepchild, eligible foster child, brother, sister, half brother, half sister, stepbrother, stepsister, adopted child or an offspring of any of them.
  • Do they meet the age requirement? 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.
  • Do they live with you? Your child must live with you for more than half the year (183 nights).
  • Do you financially support them? Your child may have a job, but that job cannot provide more than half of her support.
  • Are you the only person claiming them? This requirement commonly applies to children of divorced parents, where you often must apply the “tie breaker rules."  These rules may also help you prove your right to claim your foster children, as these rules establish income, parentage and residency requirements for claiming a child.

Here is the link to Publication 501.

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5 Replies

I filed my foster care children on my taxes, now the bio parents are making waves.. who has the right? We had them almost 8 months and placed by dept human services.

To prove your legal right to claim your foster children on your tax return, consider the following:

Foster children fall under the definition of Qualifying Child for the purposes of claiming them on your return.  In addition, you need to show the children spent 183 nights or more in your home.  There is a "Support Worksheet" in Publication 501 (the link is below) to prove you provided over half the support. In addition to the general rules of citizenship, not claiming their self on a return, and not filing a joint return with someone else, you must be able to answer "yes" to all of the following questions:

  • Are they related to you? The child can be your son, daughter, stepchild, eligible foster child, brother, sister, half brother, half sister, stepbrother, stepsister, adopted child or an offspring of any of them.
  • Do they meet the age requirement? 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.
  • Do they live with you? Your child must live with you for more than half the year (183 nights).
  • Do you financially support them? Your child may have a job, but that job cannot provide more than half of her support.
  • Are you the only person claiming them? This requirement commonly applies to children of divorced parents, where you often must apply the “tie breaker rules."  These rules may also help you prove your right to claim your foster children, as these rules establish income, parentage and residency requirements for claiming a child.

Here is the link to Publication 501.

I filed my foster care children on my taxes, now the bio parents are making waves.. who has the right? We had them almost 8 months and placed by dept human services.

So I guess my question is this. The "foster parent" is not coming out of pocket to "care for" the child they are fostering. Technically, the state pays the foster to care for the child, so if the state is paying her, and she is using that money to care for the child, why does the foster family get to claim the child at all? There is zero care from her own money!

I filed my foster care children on my taxes, now the bio parents are making waves.. who has the right? We had them almost 8 months and placed by dept human services.

@user17520970420    You are posting to an old thread that has had no activity since 2019.    Are you having some sort of issue or do you have a question about a child who has been placed in foster care?   Do you have a child who has been placed in foster care---and are you trying to claim that child on your own tax return?   

**Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to offer the most correct information possible. The poster disclaims any legal responsibility for the accuracy of the information that is contained in this post.**
Hal_Al
Level 15

I filed my foster care children on my taxes, now the bio parents are making waves.. who has the right? We had them almost 8 months and placed by dept human services.

There are two types of dependents, "Qualifying Children"(QC) and Other ("Qualifying Relative" in IRS parlance even though they don't have to actually be related).  

 

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.  So, there is no requirement that the relative  (a foster parent is a "relative" for tax purposes) provide any support. 

 

.A child closely related 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, the tax payer must be the person entitled to claim the child as a qualifying child (this essentially means that they 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...

I filed my foster care children on my taxes, now the bio parents are making waves.. who has the right? We had them almost 8 months and placed by dept human services.

@user17520970420 one of the criteria of a qualiftying child (and most miss this critical point), is how much of their own support does the child provide?  it has to be less than 50% as one of the critieria to be a qualifying child.

 

The fact that the State is paying everything and the foster parents pay nothing is immaterial.  That is not the criteria. 

 

The point is the child is paying less than 50%.  and THAT satisfies one of the criteria of being a dependent in this case. 

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