Question

Hi I was trying to see what child is rejected me from filing them because I only claimed my son Quincy on the child care piece. If he is already claimed by the other parent is that information I can k

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 1, 2019
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TurboTax Deluxe Online

Employee

See this post for which ssn was rejected
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/4685060-how-do-i-find-out-which-ss-is-already-used">https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/4685060-how-do-i-find-out-which-ss-is-already-used</a>

macuser_22

Employee

Which parent did the child live with more than half for 2018?

**Disclaimer: This post is for discussion purposes only and is NOT tax advice. The author takes no responsibility for the accuracy of any information in this post.**

Hal_Al

Employee

You said you only claimed your son on the child care piece. That indicates that you and your ex don't understand what you each are allowed to claim. He has most likely claimed the Earned Income credit on Quincy and that is not allowed. The effect is to deny you claiming anything.

There is a special rule in the case of divorced & separated (including never married) parents. When the non-custodial parent is claiming the child as a dependent/exemption/child tax credit; the custodial parent is still allowed to claim the same child for Earned Income Credit, Head of Household filing status, and day care credit. This "splitting of the child" is not available to parents who lived together at any time during the last 6 months of the year; then only one of you can claim the child for any tax reasons. The tax benefits may not be split in any other manner.

Note in particular that the non-custodial parent can never claim the Earned Income Credit, Head of Household filing status or the day care credit, based on that child, even when the custodial parent has released the exemption to him.

So, it's good idea to let the other parent know that you will be claiming those items, as many first time divorced parents are not aware of this rule and may try to claim those items, which will cause the IRS to send out letters.

Ref: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17#en_US_2017_publink1000170897

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