I was granted temporary guardianship of my nephew in August 2015. He remained in my care more than 50% of the time after that. Am I able to claim him as a dependent?

[kim-james1708]

He was born in Feb 2015 and lived with his parents until the end of July. I received temporary guardianship in August and had him more than 50% of the time through the remainder of the year. Who should claim him?

[Opus 17]

You need to have custody for more than half the days since the child was born. I make it about 5 months on both sides, so you are actually going to have to count up the days. Because this is your nephew, the date of the court order is not important, just the number of nights the child slept in your home vs the number of nights he slept in his parents' home.  If you had custody more than half the time since he was born, then In turbotax you can select "7 months" since this is the equivalent of the correct answer (more than half the time since he was born).

If neither you nor the parents had the child for more than half the nights (if he was in someone else's care) then there is a different procedure to follow to determine who gets to claim him as a dependent.  Turbotax should solve this for you if you answer all the questions carefully but you can post back here if you need more details.