Claiming daughter as dependent

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
January 4, 2022
3 replies
30 views

My daughter is 22 she just graduated in May of 21 she had a pod internship during the summer and recently started a full time salaried job September of 21. She has to file her own taxes due to how much she made last year but can I still claim her on my taxes?

Opus 17

Level 15

There are three relevant tests — residency, support, and full-time student status.

It sounds like your daughter meets the full-time student requirement, if she was a full-time college student for at least one day in at least five different months of 2021. So if she was a student in the spring semester, from January through May, she qualifies as a full-time student to be claimed as a dependent.

For the support test, for you to claim her as a dependent, it must be true that she paid less than half her overall living expenses for the year. You have to consider her living expenses for the whole year and how much support she provided herself. Her living expenses include her last semester of tuition, room and board, travel, entertainment, medical expenses and insurance, and so on. If she lived with you rent free, then you are considered to have provided support in the form of room and board. If she took out student loans in her name, that that counts as support she provided herself, even though she will pay the loans back later. You need to add up her total living expenses and determine how much of her own living expenses she paid, if it is less than half, then she qualifies to be claimed as a dependent.

The residency test asks whether she lived in your home more than half the year. Being away at college is usually considered a temporary absence and the student is usually considered to live at home with their parents. But there are exceptions, such as if the student moves out of their parents house permanently and establishes their own apartment with a partner or other permanent living arrangement. You will have to determine for how many days of the year the student can be considered to “live with you.”

If the person is a full-time student, did not provide more than half their own support, and did live with you more than half the year, you can claim them as a dependent.

xmasbaby0

Level 15

Just make sure you and your daughter are both on the same page. She needs to know that you will claim her as a dependent so that when she prepares her own tax return she knows whether to say on her own return that she can be claimed as someone else's dependent. If she says she cannot be claimed then one of you will be rejected when you try to e-file. If she is a dependent then she should not expect to get the $1400 3rd stimulus since dependents cannot receive stimulus money.

**Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to offer the most correct information possible. The poster disclaims any legal responsibility for the accuracy of the information that is contained in this post.**

Bsch4477

Level 15

If she was, as your post suggests, a full time student for 5 months in 2021 you can claim her as a dependent if she did not provide more than half of her support in 2021. Be sure that she checks the box saying that someone else can claim her when she files her own return.