Question about Married Filing Separately and dependents

[Madmax79818515]

For this year only, we are married filing separate w/ 2 kids. Usually we do it jointly and claim 1 child each as a dependent. Child #1 is my wife's biological child, Child #2 is OUR biological child.
On our W4s at our jobs, both of us listed 2 dependents each (1 for ourselves, and 1 for the child we are claiming).

Now for turbo tax... If one of us claims both, we get more money back. But if we do it the way we've been doing it (claiming 1 child each), we lose Federal money and owe them $200.

We would really like to go with the first option where 1 of us claims both children. But will that mess things up because of what we filled out on our W4s? Doesn't that need to reflect what we put on turbo tax?

[ChristinaS · Accepted solution]

No- the W4 doesn't need to reflect anything, to be frank.

W4s aren't tax returns. Many people claim 0 and have kids, a house, college, etc. The number of allowances on that form is for withholding purposes and little else. Allowances aren't compared with kids on your return.

Since they are both your children (by marriage or biology), you can choose for one person to claim both. The W4 isn't standing in you way!