Do you get credit on your tax return for child support payments made?

Answer 1

Child support payments are never deductible for the person who paid and never income to the person receiving the payments.

Child support payments do not give the person who paid the right to claim the dependency exemption.

Answer 2

No, you do not. Child support is NEVER deductible.

Under VERY specific circumstances you MIGHT be able to claim the child as a dependent and take an exemption for them. See IRS Pub 501, page 11 for full details. Merely providing more than half of the support is NOT sufficient to claim the exemption.

Answer 3

Child Support is not taxable, nor deductible. the child(ren) however, are.

if its not in your divorce papers, or a court order who can claim them the IRS goes by this;

who pays for more then 50% of the childs living expenses
who the child lives with for a certain amount of months per year.

if both parents claim the child(ren), the IRS will audit BOTH parents. and the parent with the living expenses receipts wins.

OK, lets take a look at what you might pay...

you pay what? 400? 600? 900?

ok, lets see...
rent; 1000
electric 300
food 400-600
heat 300
phone/cable 100
auto; (for doctors, dentists, take to school when they miss the bus, pick up when sick, pick up medicines, get food and do much more...) 200

that doesnt even include clothes, shoes, sneakers, school supplies, hair cuts, class trips, class pictures, over the counter medicines, perscriptions, laundry det, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, christmas, easter, tooth fairy, birthdays, etc. etc


if you are on civil terms w/the ex, see if you can share every other year of claiming the child...

TAX INFO
http://www.taxsites.com/index.htm
http://www.divorceinfo.com/taxes.htm
http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc354.html
http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc422.html
http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq4-5.html
http://www.irs.gov/localcontacts/index.html
http://www.irs.gov/advocate/index.html
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p525/index.html
http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/offsets_childsupport.html

Answer 4

No. Child support payment are not deductible.

The custodial parent claims the exemption for the child - UNLESS there is a stipulation in a custody, separation or divorce decree...or if the custodial parent signed an 8332 to allow the non-custodial parent to take the exemption.

Answer 5

If you have provided more than half of the child's support, you can claim the child as an exemption. This is different than deducting the support payments.

Answer 6

Yes.