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There is a court order in place each parent claims 1 child. Its suspected that mother didnt claim the child but let her father or fiance claim the child. Is this legal?

 
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1 Reply
Hal_Al
Level 15

There is a court order in place each parent claims 1 child. Its suspected that mother didnt claim the child but let her father or fiance claim the child. Is this legal?

Simple answer: yes.

But it depends on the details. The other but is that even if she isn't claiming the child, you don't get to, without her permission. 

A child can be the “qualifying child” dependent of any close relative in the household. If she lives with someone else, e.g. her parents, it may be better if they claim her child.  The fiance can claim the child under more limited circumstances and for fewer benefits.

 

The court order is irrelevant. The IRS will not honor it. So, if the child you claim also lives mostly with her, she, or her father can claim him too.  The IRS goes by physical custody, not legal custody. 

 

You should be aware of some other things: 

1. The custodial parent has first priority on claiming the children on her taxes; regardless of the amount of support provided by the non-custodial parent. The IRS goes by physical custody, not legal custody. The non-custodial parent can only claim the child as a dependent if the custodial parent gives permission (on form 8332) or if it's spelled out in a pre 2009 divorce decree.  Even if a court order, dated after 2008, gives the non-custodial parent the right to claim the child, he must still get form 8332 from the custodial parent. A properly worded decree should require her to provide that form. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8332.pdf

 

 2. There is a special rule in the case of divorced & separated (including never married) parents. When the non-custodial parent is claiming the child as a dependent/exemption/child tax credit; the custodial parent is still allowed to claim the same child for Earned Income Credit, Head of Household filing status, and day care credit. This "splitting of the child" is not available to parents who lived together at any time during the last 6 months of the year; then only one of you can claim the child for any tax reasons. The tax benefits may not be split in any other manner.
Note in particular that the non-custodial parent can never claim the Earned Income Credit, Head of Household filing status or the day care credit, based on that child, even when the custodial parent has released the dependency to him. A court order can only give you the dependency, it cannot give you those items.

Ref: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17#en_US_2017_publink1000170897

Scroll down to "Children of divorced or separated parents (or parents who live apart)"

 

3. For tax purposes, there is no such thing as joint custody, regardless of what your legal agreement says. The requirement, to be custodial parent, is that the child live with you MORE than 50% of the time. One of you has to be the custodial parent and the other the non-custodial parent. The IRS goes by physical custody, not legal custody. 

 

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