Question

Do I have to give my child the money I get from my child tax credit off of my income taxes. Because she is claiming that I do and that she needs it more then me.

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 8, 2022
2 replies
0 views

She turned 16 last year in February and me and her argued that the money I get belongs to her and that I'm stealing it, but from what I understand is that I worked for that money so it should be mine to do what I want , not hers. Now she wants her father to claim her , which he has never done , because he states he will give her , her money .

TurboTax Online

DaveF1006

It depends. I am not going to get involved in a family dispute on how you should distribute the funds once you receive the money. What I can say is that the credit is based off your earned income, in which you provided room and board for your child, then you may draw your own conclusions on what this answer should be. Also, to answer the second part of your question, here is the answer.

You are the custodial parent,
if you pay for more than 1/2 of the cost for your child's support while living with you and
if the child stays more than 6 months at your residence
Most importantly if she qualifies to be your dependent after entering the qualifying information you ex will not qualify to claim her.

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X

xmasbaby0

Employee

If she were my teenager I would point out to her that i practically own the air she breathes. No, the CTC you received is not her money. If you are her parent and you are able to claim her as your dependent--that is your money---a tax credit provided to the parent who is supporting a child.

Someday when she gets a job she can earn her own money, file a tax return and seek a tax refund of tax withheld from her own paychecks.

**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.**

O

Opus 17

Employee

Good grief. It sounds like your child is using your separation to play one parent off the other and try to gain an advantage. I am tempted to suggest some type of family counseling, although that’s likely to cost much more than the amount of money we are talking about here.

The stimulus and the child tax credit go to the person who claims the child as a dependent. If it was supposed to go to the dependent directly, Congress would have said so. It goes to the person who claims the child as a dependent, because that is the person who is caring for the child and paying the majority of their expenses.

Now in the case of children of parents who are divorced or separated and live apart and share custody, the only parent who has the automatic right to claim the child as a dependent is the parent where the child lives more than half the nights of the year. That is the custodial parent in IRS terminology, and the IRS goes only by where the child actually lived and does not follow court orders or custody designations. You actually have to count the number of nights. The noncustodial parent can only claim the child as a dependent if the custodial parent gives the noncustodial parent a signed form 8332 dependent release. If the noncustodial parent claims the child without a signed form 8332, the custodial parent may be blocked from e-filing. In this case, file your return by mail and let the IRS investigate the duplicate dependent claim.

Now as a matter of tax strategy, and extracting the most money possible from the IRS, there are two things to think about.

1. If you were paid the $1400 stimulus in March, but you allow your ex to claim the child as a dependent on their tax return, your ex will get another $1400 stimulus payment and you will not have to repay the stimulus payment you previously received. This is one way of getting extra money from the IRS because of the way the law was written.

2. If you received the $300 per month advanced child tax credit for the child, and you do not claim the child as a dependent (because you give the other parent a release form), you will have to pay back the advanced credit payments, unless your income is less than $40,000, in which case I believe you qualify for repayment protection and the repayment is forgiven.

In the case where the two parents have a relatively decent relationship, shifting the dependent around can result in a substantially higher total tax refund (but only for 2021 because of the special pandemic rules). I point this out as a fact, not because I think you should try to extract the most money from the IRS. And I don’t know that I would want to get involved with this kind of gamesmanship if I had a difficult relationship with the other parent and if my child was trying to play me against the other parent. But I include this fact because it is part of the overall situation.

//End tax advice//

//Begin grumpy old man comments//

I am sure that you provide your child with a lot more financial benefit than the $1400 stimulus or the $3000 child tax credit, and it might be time to demonstrate this by cutting off their access to their car or their cell phone or their fancy clothes or whatever else they think is important that you pay for.