Irs Issues, I Need Help With My Tax Problems?
I left my husband about three yrs ago. I took my then two yr old son with me. So ive been claiming him on my taxes since then. I had my boyfriend claim him last yr because i didn’t make enough on my job and he has always been there for him giving me money to take care of my son.
Yesterday, he called and told me that IRS have sent him a letter that someone else have claim my son so he shuold explain his side of the story. Im almost possitve that it might be my exhusband. ever since i left him three yrs ago, he hasnt even send my son a penny,
My question is what should i do to help my boyfriend out of this mess? we both live in two different states. Please help.
You need to call the IRS office write down names and there is certain dept there that takes care of it and explain situation ..how is the divorce or agreement set up?it takes awhile for them to judge the case and get back to you..
they go by the court order i do believe unless he hasnt been living up to that…?you need to discuss with them
same thing happen to us because grandbaby lives with us full time..then her parents wanted to both claim her..its been HECK!because daddy doesnrt do anything..
another thing you need to make sure of is ex doesnt use his social sec number for anything else…
You have a mess.
You probably need to get professional assistance.
First of all, you can not just “let” your boyfriend claim your son. He must qualify to do so. Unless your son lived with your boyfriend for the ENTIRE year, your boyfriend can not claim him.
If your boyfriend can not prove that your son lived with him the entire year, he will have to pay back all of the money he received for claiming him.
Unless your child lived with your boy friend, he is not entitled to claim him.
If he lives with him and he furnishes over half the support, then he could claim him, and he needs to explain it to the IRS and have proof.
He should respond to the letter saying that he was not eligible to claim the child. The IRS will then adjust his account which will result in a balance owed. If he can’t pay it in full he can make payment arrangements.
Both claims will most likely be denied. Your ex can’t claim him unless either there is a valid court order saying he can, or you gave him permission in writing and said you wouldn’t claim him.
The only way your boyfriend could claim him is if the child lived with him ALL year, he provided over half of the child’s support, and your gross income for the year was under $3500 – otherwise, the child is YOUR qualifying child, whether you claimed him or not, and your boyfriend can’t claim him. Even if he could, by the way, he couldn’t take a child tax credit for him or claim head of household.
So your boyfriend will have to pay back whatever he got from claiming your son, maybe plus interest and penalties.
Oh, what a mess. You can’t just let “my boyfriend claim him”–if he doesn’t qualify it’s FRAUD.
In order for your boyfriend to claim your son’s exemption, he had to meet a huge series of tests:
1. YOU made less than $3400.
2. YOU didn’t support yourself.
3. The child lived with HIM from 1/1 to 12/31.
4. HE provided more than half of the child’s support.
If all 4 of these tests were met, then and only then could your boyfriend claim the child’s exemption (and your’s too). At the 15% tax rate, the exemption was worth $510 less in tax. That’s it. Your boyfriend could claim both of your exemptions, but not head of household, no child tax credit and certainly no EIC.
If all 4 of the tests were met, no one else would have been able to claim the child, so he’d be able to defend the case against the letter from the IRS.
If the 4 tests are NOT met, the IRS will have sort this out. If you made more then $3400 and lived with your son, then YOU were the only one eligible to claim the child. As the non-custodial parent, the father can only claim the child if you gave him permission via a signed form 8332 or a signed legal document (divorce decree or child custody). With those forms, he could have claimed the exemption and the child tax credit, but not HOH or EIC.
If both your boyfriend and your ex-husband tried to claim EIC, when the dust settles, BOTH will have huge bills to pay back to the IRS and BOTH will find they are barred from collecting EIC for 2 to 10 years.
Your boyfriend should just reply to the IRS letter and said that he “accidentally” claimed your son. Since he was not entitled to, it is best to just admit it ASAP. They will recompute his taxes and send him a bill (they probably already have and that figure is probably already in the letter they sent him).
But if you don’t want your ex-husband to claim your son, and he should not either, you and your boyfriend should also notify the IRS that your son lived with you the entire year (and the ex- not at all) so the ex- isn’t entitled to the dependency exemption either.
This is one of those cases that nobody except you qualifies to take your son as a dependent, and you already said you don’t benefit from taking him. So he should not show up on anybody’s tax return.
In the future, you might want to be a little more careful about following the tax laws. This is a very common thing for the IRS to discover. It happened to you once so you can bet it will happen again in the future.
I’ve been involved in taxes for longer then I care to acknowledge, both on the individual side (all my working life!!) and from a legal standpoint since passing the bar and following tax law. I’ve rendered a lot of advice and corrected a lot of wrongs, and I must say that what you’ve posted makes utter sense. Please carry on the good work – the more individuals know the better they’ll be armed to cope with the tax man, and that’s what it’s all about.