Can I claim my little brother who's mentally challenged and legally blind? He does work

[SweetieJean]

Does he live with you?

[jasonlewis843]

Yes

[Opus 17 · Accepted solution]

There are two types of dependents.

A brother can be a qualifying child dependent, but qualifying child dependents must be under age 19, or full time students under age 24, or any age and be disabled.  Disabled for income tax purposes means 

1. unable to perform gainful work,

2. due to a condition that is permanent, or likely to last at least one year, or likely to lead to death.

Work in a job training program for disabled persons does not count as "gainful work" for this test, but most other kinds of work do count.  So if he is capable of performing gainful work, and is over the age limit, he can't be a qualifying child dependent.

The other type is a qualifying relative dependent.  A person can be your qualifying relative dependent if you pay more than half their living expenses and they earned less than $4050 of taxable income.