IKYANAL (I know you are not a lawyer) but even if you are, I will not take your response as legal advice unless I can find a lawyer willing to represent me when I sue you for your crappy legal advice.
Anyways, I am getting divorced. I will have the children every other weekend. Other then that they will be with mom. So basically 85% of the time will be with mom.
I will pay the mom childsupport.
My question is: What is the most logical/fair way to claim the children as dependents. (Ok I know you are not an accountant also).
I assume come tax time, that I can claim a big deduction of some sort for all the child support paid. Should I also be claiming credit for any of the children as dependents??
My initial thinking was no, mom can claim all children as dependents, and I will only claim a deduction for child support paid… But am I short changing myself here?
Any opinions? Anyone been through a similiar thing? I am in Washington State if you care.
No, you shouldn’t expect to deduct the child support payments. Getting to deduct both child support payments and the deduction for claiming dependents would have the taxpayers bearing more of the costs of raising your children after divorce than they did when you were married.
The decision about who will claim the tax deduction for your kids should be part of the overall divorce settlement and should play into the calculation of the child support payment.
In the eyes of the IRS, whoever the kids **live with **the majority of the time gets the deduction. So, if you have them the majority of the time, it’s yours. Otherwise, hers.
My ex tried to claim the kids when they’d lived with me all but 30 days in one year, and it took MONTHS and a lot of time to sort it out with the IRS. He got on some kind of IRS watch list for that little trick. :rolleyes:
Now, you can agree with your ex to switch off on the deduction, but you have to file IRS Form 8332, the “Release of Claim to Exemption for Child of Divorced or Separated Parents”. This must be be resubmitted annually.