No.
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 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 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.
There is a way to split the tax benefits. For future negotiations with the
other parent (and maybe even for this year) the following info may be of use:
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 exemption to him.
