Son was born in December of 2016, do I qualify for child tax credit?

[jerry2000 · Accepted solution]

Yes, BUT you must answer the question about how long the child lived with you as "the whole year". In the year that a child is born, the IRS deems that the child lived with you for the entire year, so answer the question in the Personal Info area that way. Also, you must enter a valid SSN for the child to get any credit for the child at all.

[turchynv]

How can a child live with parents for a whole year if it they are born in December?  This does not make sense.  Could you provide a link at irs.gov that supports your statement?

[fanfare]

That's the way TurboTax does it. Admittedly it causes confusion.
In  any case, if your child is born and lives, you get the deduction.

[Opus 17]

IRS publication page 14 and page 19.

"Death or birth of child. A child who was born or died during the year is treated as having lived with you more than half the year if your home was the child's home more than half the time he or she was alive during the year. The same is true if the child lived with you more than half the year except for any required hospital stay fol­lowing birth."

Turbotax uses a # of months metric to get at the question of whether the child lived with you more than half the year, so to indicate that a newborn lived with you more than half the number of days since their birth, you have to select "all year" (or any number of months 7 or greater).

[turchynv]

Thank you so much for clarification