Taxes - no claim on daughter this year
So - May 24th my daughter went to stay with her dad. My parents had her for 2 weeks in July. I had her for 8 days in October. She will be here from Dec 22-31st.
All in all my daughters dad and i are like 50/50 on filing her on our taxes. Ive always filed her because Ive had her 100% up until this year.
Anyway - we spoke yesterday and he said hes been filing quarterly and has claimed her because shes in private school and he has a bunch of tax write offs with her.
He says so far he is getting a refund of $3500 from claiming her along and it will be around $5k at the end of the year. He offered to send me a copy of the refund and a check for half. Well thanks dude, I think you owe at least that since I cancelled $20k in back child support you owed...Im not gonna fight.. I usually get less than that back when I claim her and it helps him and he has her so... anywho....
I dunno how to file now... im not Head of Household anymore. Do I just file as single with no dependants. Probably just answered my own question here... lol.
Re: Taxes - no claim on daughter this year
Audrey,
The guy sounds like her is being fairly reasonable. Tax law says it is the person who contributes "over half" of support who gets to claim the dependent. The private school thing could easily account for that difference. Time, per se, does not determine this, dollars do. It seems like you have come to accept that things are working out "not awful".
Re: Taxes - no claim on daughter this year
By IRS rules you are indeed screwed on being able to claim Head of Household status, and will be stuck filing Single with the only claimable exemption being yourself. According to my accountant there is no way for separated parents to 'share' a dependent, thus if your daughter's father provided the vast majority of your daughter's financial support (i.e. the private school tuition), if your daughter lived with you for less than 6 months, and if your daughter's father doesn't voluntarily agree to 'release' your daughter's dependent status to you, you daughter's father gets the exemption and you don't. Thus a voluntary agreement by your daughter's father to share his IRS refund check with you is as good as it gets (of course I wouldn't count on that happening until you have his check in your hand either!).
Depending on the actual amount of your 2005 taxable income and a million other variables like child care tax credit eligibility, going from Head of Household status with two exemptions versus Single status with one exemption (yourself) will probably be in the ballpark of about a 4% increase in the effective federal income tax rate and a 2% increase in the effective California state income tax rate you'll have to pay. Hopefully the promised tax refund money 'gift' from your daughter's father will offset the increase in your own tax liability. However, a 6% tax increase on say a $70,000 gross income = an extra $ 4,200 in taxes due, such that you'll probably still wind up 'in the hole' even if you do receive $2,500 as a 'gift' from your daughter's father.