disabled adult as a dependent

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
January 24, 2025
3 replies
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My daughter lives on her own. Works and has a job coach. She is legally blind. I have to do her medicine, take her shopping, pick her up from work, and help her with other things that she needs that she can't see to do on her own. I was told I could still claim her as a dependent is that true?

xmasbaby0

Employee

In order to claim your daughter as a dependent, you would have to be providing for over half her financial support. Helping her with daily errands, etc. is a great way to assist her, but that does not mean she is your dependent for an income tax return. You say she lives on her own and has a job. Are you paying for over half of her support?

IRS interview to help determine who can be claimed:

https://www.irs.gov/help/ita/who-can-i-claim-as-a-dependent

**Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to offer the most correct information possible. The poster disclaims any legal responsibility for the accuracy of the information that is contained in this post.**

TomK2023

Probably not. There are two ways that you can claim someone as a dependent.

Based on your initial information: it doesn't appear that you can claim her: as a "Qualifying Child" because she doesn't live with you nor that you provide more than half of her own support. 2). as a "Qualifying Relative" because you don't provide more than half of her support.

You can claim a child, relative, friend, fiancé(e), and so on as a dependent on your 2024 taxes as long as they meet the following requirements:

Qualifying child:

They're related to you.
They aren't claimed as a dependent by someone else.
They're a US citizen, resident alien, national, or a Canadian or Mexican resident.
They aren’t filing a joint return with their spouse.
They're under the age of 19 (or 24 for full-time students).
There's no age limit for permanently and totally disabled children.
They lived with you for more than half the year (exceptions apply).
They didn't provide more than half of their own support for the year.

Qualifying relative:

They don't have to be related to you (despite the name).
They aren't claimed as a dependent by someone else.
They're a US citizen, resident alien, national, or a Canadian or Mexican resident.
They aren’t filing a joint return with their spouse.
They lived with you the entire year (exceptions apply).
They made less than $5,050 in 2024.
You provided more than half of their financial support.

When you add someone as a dependent, the program will ask a series of questions to make sure you can claim them. There may be other tax benefits you can get when you claim a dependent.

You should still enter your daughter's information into the program just to make sure that she does not qualify as a dependent.

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Opus 17

Employee

Not in this situation.

Your daughter is not disabled for tax purposes because she can work a job. For tax purposes, disabled means "unable to perform gainful work". Since she can work, she is not disabled for taxes, even though she has a medical disability and needs help with some life tasks.

Because she is not disabled, the only scenario where you could claim her as a dependent is if she had less than $5050 of taxable income AND you provided more than half her financial support. That does not seem to be the case from your details, even though you may give her significant non-financial assistance.