Partner and I are unmarried. He is claiming the child as head of household. How do I answer the questions regarding how much custody I had of our child?

[cass661659]

We all live together and parent together.

[KrisD15]

You can enter all year, but also make sure you report that the other parent had the higher income and "NO, the other parent has not waived their legal right", so that TurboTax does not allow you to claim the child as your dependent. 

In your situation, since the other parent is claiming the child as a dependent, you needn't enter any information regarding that child into your TurboTax program. 

[rjs]

I would put it a little more strongly than KrisD15. The question and answer interview in TurboTax is not very clear for unmarried parents who live together. It tends to cause confusion, as you have seen. The safest approach is to not enter any information about the child in your tax return at all. Just say that you don't have any children. Then you won't have to answer any questions about custody or anything else about the child.

When unmarried parents live together, only one parent can use the child on his or her tax return, and that parent gets all the tax benefits related to the child. The other parent cannot use the child at all, or take any tax benefits related to the child.

[Mike9241]

@KrisD15 if both of you are the child's birth parents the IRS requires the one with the highest adjusted gross income to claim the child.

[rjs]

EDIT: Example 8 on page 17 of IRS Publication 501 clarifies the IRS rules. In the example, the parent with the higher AGI agrees to allow the parent with the lower AGI to claim the child. It clearly says that this is allowed. So you can decide between you which one of you will claim the child, regardless of who has the higher AGI, as long as you both agree. The tiebreaker rule applies only if both parents claim the same child.

The wording of the IRS "tiebreaker" rule is unclear. The IRS will definitely apply the rule about the higher adjusted gross income (AGI) if the parents don't agree on who will claim the child, and both parents claim the same child. It's not clear whether that rule applies if only one parent claims the child. As a practical matter, if only one parent claims the child, and the child does not appear on the other parent's tax return at all, the IRS will accept your decision as to which parent claims the child, regardless of who has the higher AGI. So you can agree between you which one of you will claim the child.

If you don't mind doing some extra work, you might want to do both of your tax returns both ways, with and without the child, and see which option gives you the lowest combined tax for the two of you together.

[rjs]

@Mike9241  and @cass661659 

In IRS Publication 501, in Example 8 on page 17, the parent with the higher AGI agrees to allow the parent with the lower AGI to claim the child. It clearly says that this is allowed. So you can decide between you which one of you will claim the child, regardless of who has the higher AGI, as long as you both agree. The tiebreaker rule applies only if both parents claim the same child.