Question

Divorced parents. but child goes to school in moms district & address.

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 2, 2018
1 reply
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Hi, So the last 4 years I have been claiming my child for taxes and my child's dad has been in and out of prison. we have divorced a few years ago and my child goes to school in my school district as well as with my address because my child's father lives in another town down the road. My child's medical care is also under my address and I am afraid this year he will try to claim our child for taxes even though he has no proof that our child lives with him. I am pretty sure he will get audited if he does try to claim our child. He gets our child ever other week but there is no court order what so ever that he gets our child ever other week. I am basically custodial parent and I just let him see our child because we do not want to go through child custody for a child custody order. My question is since our child goes to school in my district under my address as well as medical care under my address, do I have to let him claim our child for taxes? he has never claimed our child for taxes before either.

Carl11_2

Employee

Where the child goes to school is irrelevant. Also, any custodial court or is irrelevant "to a degree" when it comes to taxes. In the case of separated or divorced parents, the IRS has their own rules for who claims the child as their dependent. What a court order says holds no weight with the IRS. The IRS is a federal agency and their rules can only be overridden by a federal judge. Since federal judges don't deal with divorce or custody issues, that's not going to happen.

Basically, the IRS defines the custodial parent, and the non-custodial parent.

The custodial parent is the one:

- With whom the child lives with for more than 182 nights of the tax year, and;

- Provides more than 50% of the child's support for the entire tax year.

The non-custodial parent is the one that does not meet the requirements to be considered the custodial parent. In the case of a tie, then the parent with the higher AGI is the custodial parent.

If the non-custodial parent wants to claim the child on their tax return, then the custodial parent must provide the non-custodial parent with a signed IRS Form 8332 releasing their right to claim the child, to the non-custodial parent. Without that signed 8332, the non-custodial parent can not claim the child. If they do, then the IRS will audit both parents and the non-custodial parent as determined by the IRS will pay back any refunds realized from claiming the child, along with interest, fines and penalties.