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New Member
posted May 31, 2019 7:15:46 PM

Who should claim the child the person who makes more or less money

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2 Replies
New Member
May 31, 2019 7:15:47 PM

this did not answer my question i know my child is a dependent i just needed to know who should claim him the higher or lower income to get the most back i found the answer by calling hr block which was the lower to get the maximum refund 

New Member
May 31, 2019 7:15:49 PM

It depends, the child must qualify as a dependent child.  To determine or confirm if the child does, please use the interactive questionnaire from the IRS site; Who Can I Claim As A Dependent?  If more than one parent qualifies and the child does not provide more than half of their own support, you can determine who should claim the child using this IRS link; Child Tiebreaker.  The rule is summarized below:

Under the tie-breaker rule, the child is treated as a qualifying child only by:
  • The parents if they file a joint return;
  • The parent, if only one of the persons is the child's parent;
  • The parent with whom the child lived the longest during the tax year, if two of the persons are the child's parent and they do not file a joint return together.  
  • The parent with the highest Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) if the child lived with each parent for the same amount of time during the tax year, and they do not file a joint return together;
  • The person with the highest AGI if no parent can claim the child as a qualifying child; or
  • A person with the higher AGI than any parent who can also claim the child as a qualifying child but does not.