Can I claim my Child as a dependent if i pay child support?

Question

there is no custody agreement I provide 52% of his support

Answer 1

Most likely you will claim your child as a "child"

Qualifying Child

There are five tests that must be met for a child to be your qualifying child. The five tests are:

1. Relationship, (you passed)
2. Age, (I am sure that is ok)
3. Residency,
To meet this test, your child must have lived with you for more than half of the year. There are exceptions for temporary absences, children who were born or died during the year, kidnapped children, and children of divorced or separated parents.
4. Support, (You got that.)
5. Special Test for Qualifying Child of More Than One Person

Tip
If your qualifying child is not a qualifying child for anyone else, this test does not apply to you and you do not need to read about it. This is also true if your qualifying child is not a qualifying child for anyone else except your spouse with whom you file a joint return.

caution
If a child is treated as the qualifying child of the noncustodial parent under the rules for children of divorced or separated parents described earlier, see Applying this special test to divorced or separated parents, later.

Sometimes, a child meets the relationship, age, residency, and support tests to be a qualifying child of more than one person. Although the child is a qualifying child of each of these persons, only one person can actually treat the child as a qualifying child. To meet this special test, you must be the person who can treat the child as a qualifying child.

If you and another person have the same qualifying child, you and the other person(s) can decide which of you will treat the child as a qualifying child. That person can take all of the following tax benefits (provided the person is eligible for each benefit) based on the qualifying child.

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The exemption for the child.
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The child tax credit.
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Head of household filing status.
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The credit for child and dependent care expenses.
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The exclusion from income for dependent care benefits.
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The earned income credit.

The other person cannot take any of these benefits based on this qualifying child. In other words, you and the other person cannot agree to divide these tax benefits between you.

Special test for qualifying child of more than one person.

IF more than one person files a return claiming the same qualifying child and only one of the persons is the child's parent, THEN the child will be treated as the qualifying child of the parent.

IF more than one person files a return claiming the same qualifying child and two of the persons are parents of the child and they do not file a joint return together, THEN the child will be treated as the qualifying child of the parent with whom the child lived for the longer period of time during the year.

IF more than one person files a return claiming the same qualifying child and two of the persons are parents of the child, they do not file a joint return together, THEN the child will be treated as the qualifying child of the and the child lived with each parent the same amount of time during the year, parent with the higher adjusted gross income (AGI).

Answer 2

It doesn't matter how much support you provide. The law states that the custodial parent gets the exemption. It defines the custodial parent as the one that the child spends the most time with during the year.

When it comes to the amount of support provided, what matters is that the child provides less than half of his or her own support. You could provide 100% of the support and the custodial parent would still get the exemption.

The only way that you could take the exemption would be if the custodial parent voluntarily relinquished it.

Answer 3

Paying child support does not qualify under the support test from the IRS.
If the child is living with the custodial parent more than 50% out of the year, the exemption, deductions and any credits will go to her. Unless either the court ordered you could claim the child for the tax benefits or she forfits any claiming rights over to you, you cannot claim the child.

Answer 4

The custodial parent can claim the exemption. This ruling came about when the IRS realized how many parents were double dipping by claiming the child(ren) twice. Unless the divorce decree specifically states who claims the dependentsand when (some divorce papers show every other year), the custodial parent would be the deciding factor.

The parent who can legally claim the child can waive the exemption by filing form 8332--Release of Claim to Exemption of Divorce or Separated Parents".

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

If the child does not live with you over half the year, then no, you can't claim him/her as a dependent no matter how much support you pay, unless the other parent gives you permission IN WRITING to claim the child, and states that he or she will not claim the exemption. The IRS has a form for this (surprise, surprise) - it's form 8332 and can be downloaded at irs.gov.

Answer 6

When custody is not spelled out in a divorce decree, the custodial parent gets to claim the dependency exemption.

A Form 8332 signed by the custodial parent can give the right to claim the dependent to the non custodial parent.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8332.pdf