My ex-husband and I have joint physical and joint legal custody of my daughter. We each have her half of the year. We alternate years for who claims her as a dependent.

[brandiwinegant]

My ex will claim my daughter for 2016.  Can I deduct daycare  costs; we split those 50/50 also

[Phillip1]

There are a couple of options/issues.

If both of you have had custody of the child for equal days during the year, you are required to determine one of you to claim all of the dependent benefits under the IRS tie breaker rule. Those rules are as follows:

Tiebreaker rules. To determine which person can treat the child as a qualifying child to claim these six tax benefits, the following tiebreaker rules apply.

• If only one of the persons is the child's parent, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the parent.

• If the parents file a joint return together and can claim the child as a qualifying child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the parents.

• If the parents don't file a joint return together but both parents claim the child as a qualifying child, the IRS will treat the child as the qualifying child of the parent with whom the child lived for the longer period of time during the year. If the child lived with each parent for the same amount of time, the IRS will treat the child as the qualifying child of the parent who had the higher adjusted gross income (AGI) for the year.

• If no parent can claim the child as a qualifying child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year.

• If a parent can claim the child as a qualifying child but no parent does so claim the child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year, but only if that person's AGI is higher than the highest AGI of any of the child's parents who can claim the child. If the child's parents file a joint return with each other, this rule can be applied by dividing the parents' combined AGI equally between the parents. See Example 6.

However, if one of you had custody of the child for more that half the year, you can divide the child tax benefits under rules for divorced or legally separated parents.

• The custodial parent (the parent that lives with the children for the majority of the year) claims:

1. Child and Dependent Care Credit

2. Earned Income Credit

3. Head of Household filing status

The noncustodial parent (the parent who doesn’t live with the children) can claim the following is they have a signed release from the custodial parent:

1. Child Tax Credit

2. The Dependency Exemption

In TurboTax, the custodial parent needs to mark the following TurboTax:

• Print, sign, and provide form 8332 to other parent.

• Enter the dependent information as if your are claiming the dependent alone.

• The child lived with them for more than half the year

• Answer yes to having a custody agreement.

• Answer yes to “the other parent is claiming the child”.

The noncustodial parent enters:

• Enter the dependent information as if your are claiming the dependent alone.

• The child lived with them for less than half the year, and

• Answer yes to having a custody agreement.

• Answer yes to having a signed release allowing them to claim the dependent.

• Scan form 8332, and attach it to your return. The program will ask for attachments in the e-file section.