2 unmarried people living together all year with a qualifying son. Can the lower income earner file single and claim the son for earned income credit if i have claimed my son as dependent and head of household as I pay over half the expenses of the house

[janedoe911]

what questions would need to be answered  in Turbo Tax by each to do this and what does it mean " by agreement" does it have to be written?

[macuser_22]

Custody agreements can only exist when there is both a custodial and non-custodial parent.  The custodial parent must live with the child more than half the year.  The non-custodial parent did not live with the child.

When both parents live with the child there is no non-custodial parent, so no custody agreement can exist.

[janedoe911]

I am not talking about the 8332 but the" tie breaker rule" for 2 people sharing a qualified child who live in the same home but are not married. One takes all the child related benefits, the other takes none. Does the benefits have to go to the parent making the highest AGI or can they make an agreement between them as to who will file as long as only one takes all the credits and the deduction (and HOH if eligible due to paying over 50% of costs) and the other claim single no dependents. And can the agreement change each year?

[Texas Roger]

The two of you can decide which one of you is going to claim the child. You can change who claims the child each year. The tie breaker rule only comes into play when two parents can't agree on who will claim the child. If they both try to claim the child, the IRS uses the tie breaker rules to determine who gets to claim the child.

[Texas Roger · Accepted solution]

The TurboTax interview is not clear enough in this section. Two parents living together cannot split the child tax benefits. The child can only be entered on one parent's tax return. The other must leave the child off their return entirely. The two parents can decide which parent is going to claim the child. It's not possible to guess which parent would get the most tax benefit. You can try it both ways to see which works best. Make sure whoever doesn't end up claiming the child deletes the child from their tax return before filing.