Level 3

Client's Ex Claimed their son

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
April 14, 2022
3 replies
10 views

Client and his ex have been each claiming 1 child the past few years. This year his ex claimed both kids. He has a Child Custody Order from the court showing Joint custody. Can we paper file with the order? Is that sufficient to claim the child?

ProSeries Tax

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Level 13

The order is completely irrelevant. Go through the requirements for claiming a dependent. What matters to the IRS is physical custody (number of nights) not whatever a judge put on a piece of paper.

Level 15

Rick beat me to it. 🤣

Level 13

@TaxGuyBill wrote:

Rick beat me to it. 🤣

Yeah but Michele is the wizard of the interactive wizards.

Level 15

@jim5917 wrote:

. He has a Child Custody Order from the court showing Joint custody.

A court order showing "custody" means nothing. For tax purposes, custody means which parent had the kids the most nights during the year.

With that in mind, is your client the Custodial parent, or is your client the Noncustodial parent?

Level 15

I'd add: Claiming for what purpose? Dependent? Child Care? Tax Credit? HOH?

Try the interactive tax wizards:

https://www.irs.gov/help/ita

Custody is not a tax issue.

Don't yell at us; we're volunteers

Level 3

Claiming for HOH and Child tax credit. They split the nights 50/50. The spouse has higher AGI

Level 15

There were 365 days in 2021. So there is no such thing as 50% - one person had more nights.