Special Needs Adult son in residence

[adunlap]

My 27 year old son lives at a residence and comes home on weekends.  I buy clothes, furniture, recreational activities and other items for him.  I need him on my return to have him on my Flexible Spending plan to cover expenses like braces that medicaid will not cover.  I don't pay half of his living expenses.  Can I have him on my taxes without considering him a dependent?

[DoninGA]

If you do not provide over one-half of his support then you cannot claim him as a dependent under the Qualifying Relative rules.  You cannot enter him on your tax return if he is not your dependent.

To be a Qualifying Relative -

1. The person cannot be your qualifying child or the qualifying child of any other taxpayer. A child is not the qualifying child of any other taxpayer if the child's parent (or any other person for whom the child is defined as a qualifying child) is not required to file an income tax return or files an income tax return only to get a refund on income tax withheld.
2. The person either (a) must be related to you or (b) must live with you all year as a member of your household.
3. The person's gross income for the year must be less than $4,400 (social security does not count) in 2022
4. You must provide more than half of the person's total support for the year.
5. The person must be a U.S. citizen or a U.S., Canada, or Mexico resident for some part of the year.
6. The person must not file a joint return with their spouse.

[Hal_Al]

It may depend on what "in residence" means.  If that is only a temporary absence* from your home, the adult child may qualify as your dependent under the "Qualifying Child" (QC) rules. 

There are two types of dependents, "Qualifying Children" and Other ("Qualifying Relative" in IRS parlance even though they don't have to actually be related). There is no income limit for a QC but there is an age limit/disability status/student status, a relationship test and residence test.

A child of a taxpayer can still be a “Qualifying Child” (QC) dependent, regardless of his/her income, if:

1. He is under age 19, or under 24 if a full time student for at least 5 months of the year, or is totally & permanently disabled
2. He did not provide more than 1/2 his own support. Welfare benefits are considered 3rd party support. 
3. He lived with the parent (including temporary absences ) for more than half the year

It doesn't matter how much he earned. What matters is how much he spent on support. Money he put into savings does not count as support he spent on him self.

The support value of the home, provided by the parent, is the fair market rental value of the home plus utilities & other expenses divided by the number of occupants.

The IRS has a worksheet that can be used to help with the support calculation. See: http://apps.irs.gov/app/vita/content/globalmedia/teacher/worksheet_for_determining_support_4012.pdf

*From IRS Pub 501: "Temporary absences. You and your qualifying person are considered to live together even if one or both of you are temporarily absent from your home due to special circumstances such as illness, education, business, vacation, military service, or detention in a juvenile facility. It must be reasonable to assume the absent person will return to the home after the temporary absence. You must continue to keep up the home during the absence."