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Blended Families
Taxes...err, is this fair? (long, aren't they all?)
I need some sage blended family advice. I'll admit its hard for me to see things from BM perspective and I want to see how "fair" this situation is. Its long sorry, but I wanted to explain it all. So tax time is coming around again, which means DH and BM will be fighting about who gets to claim the kids.
Backstory: 2 kids. When DH and BM split up, the agreed to each claim one child.
2004-2007 For the first four years everything was great.
2007 Then BM decided to file her taxes without telling DH and claim them both. After the fact, they decided the next year DH could claim them both. He was pissed but agreed.
2008 DH claims them both as agreed. We also get full custody BM only has supervised visitation. No child support at all.
2009 DH claims them both after much fighting with BM even though she only had supervised visitation for 9 months and they spent the night at her house 10 nights total all year. No child support at all. Sorry you can only claim your kids as dependents if they were actually dependent on you for something.
2010 BM is going to want to claim them both this year I know it. DH has allowed her to have more visitation, but not anywhere close to 50/50. She still has not paid us a cent in child support. Letting her claim 1 of the boys gives us about $2000 less. Letting her claim both of them $5000 less. She's going to throw it in his face he has DS to claim too.
Offering her one child to claim is more then fair right? I dread this topic every year it causes so many fights between DH and I. If we were getting CS, I'd have no problem letting her claim one. I personally think she should claim neither of them.
Thanks if you made it this far. I kinda just needed to vent.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Taxes...err, is this fair? (long, aren't they all?)
This is also coming from a SM point of view. Our situation is a little different in that FI and BM have 50/50 custody and she also gets CS and alternate years of claiming SS. Even years we claim him, odd years she claims him.
Given that you are not receiving any CS and have full custody I think that it is more than fair that she claim only one of the children.
I hope that you guys are able to work it out.
What's the CO say??
Barring that, I'm the birth mom in my sitch and I think it ridic that he gets to claim miss ma'am every other year even though he contributes the minimum and rarely sees her. So I definately would be living that some heifer who doesn't support her kids and isn't allowed to see them alone is trying to make a buck off them.
I think you should get to claim them both as long as she isn't paying child support. And why isn't she anyway? What about child support enforcement? They usually tag your tax return if you're behind, don't they?
In your sitch, I could see nothing more poetic than allowing her to claim the children only to watch the IRS swipe her check and hand it to you.
Click me, click me!
Once again, I love you Hind. Oh, and I have never heard you call her anything but Pinky, I did a double take.
I adore you already
I'm BM and my son's dad is supposed to claim him every other year per the pathetic child support order. Which means every other year all the measley CS he pays he gets back in his taxes.( he doesn't have any custody, doesn't help anymore than CS which is taken out of his paycheck cause i won't get it otherwise) BS if you ask me....
Also he now owes back CS to his other son's mom (she couldn't decide who she wanted the baby-daddy to be for the poor kids first couple years and always dissapered(sp?) when anyone talked about a paternity test) so now if he claims my son on his taxes she gets it. Money that's supposed to go to me and my son goes to the crazy !@#$. Even more BS.
Sorry kinda ventured off answering your Q, this time of year grates on me too. But if a CS order is in place they will also put the tax stuff in it too. And I think max EIC you can get back each year caps off at 2 kids. Not that the worthless mom deserves to get it. So no it is not fair what she is trying to pull. If she falsely claims them wouldn't that be something she can get in trouble for? Like frauding the IRS or whatev?
GL
I know I sound snarky here, but how many times do we read about BMs who tie child support to visitation. More money or no visitation. Or the crazy amounts of CS and then withholding visitation (Serendipity comes to mind).
They are two separate issues. And as such, need to be addressed separately.
Is this OPs ex an @$$ for not seeing his son? Yes. But he is fulfilling his legal obligations and as such has the same financial rights. Especially when The PAYEE has to pay taxes on said money and the RECIEVER does not.
Hi, I'm new here but have been lurking awhile. I'll post an intro post here soon. Anyway...back to your post. If you have them one day over 50% of the year then you get to claim them. Not only that, if you have physical custody and she doesn't pay CS then she has NO arguement that she should get even one.
If you claim them both and she claims one or both of the kids then you just have to provide some sort of proof that you had them in custody one day past 1/2 the year. If you have a visitation calendar that will work. We had to do this once and BM had to repay the IRS.
In my view, and I have had to deal with this very issue in the past, you owe it to those kids to claim them on your taxes to get the refund. Part of it will go to their care and it is in their best interest. DS is non of her business and he does not factor into the conversation with her at all. Just tell her that you care for them the better part of the year and will be claiming them on your taxes. I wouldn't even offer her one if I was you. She won't like it but in the eyes of the IRS she doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Good Luck!
I hesitated posting anywhere on here because a lot of the posts are about the stupid/irritating things BM's do. And had a feeling my post wasn't going to be taken well, since I am the BM. Which is why i felt the need to explain my self more and possibly TMI(sorry if it is I babble... a lot
).
Thanks llumine for opening my eyes to the whole taking the taxes out b4 thing
Look, my response was not directly tied to your being a Biological Mother. NO ONE HERE is biased towards one side or the other, since there are just as many BMs as SMs. We pretty much just try to support each other from stupid.
And also, my response did not come from a place of "been there, done that with our BM". I was never trying to imply that YOU tied both, which is why I put that point at the end.
I really DO have a huge problem with the disparity of the tax codes. BOTH sides need to be taxed on Child Support in order to morally claim the tax refund.
I am sorry that I took your post for the box to my soap.
Thanks for all the replies. I didn't get the chance to log back on until now. Just to clarify things, DH and BM only have a custody CO. They did it though the custody mediation program, and the mediator told them she was unable to include any financial information, even who claims them on their taxes.
DH didn't file for CS at first because BM was living on the street and he knew he wouldn't get squat. Now he is afraid to file for CS because he knows it would ensue another custody battle and he might lose the boys. Being a former family law paralegal, I've seen how mother-sided the court system is here and we would rather the boys be safe with us, then try for a few hundred dollars a month and lose them.
DH is a big push over though, and I guess my biggest fear is that he will give in to her to stop the freak out show she likes to put on. I know we could claim both kids, since we have custody over 50% of the time, but unfortunately we will probably have to pacify her with claiming one.
This isn't true. And I wouldn't try to "use" this info unless you have a family law lawyer and a tax accountant back this up for you.
As far as taxes go, I'm pretty sure the standard rule is that you've had to have provided more than 50% of your child's financial care as well as the child having lived with you for the majority of the year. This, without an agreement to the contrary via child support order.
OP, even if you cannot claim your child on your taxes as a dependent, you may be able to claim them for the EIC if you qualify. That's what I do on the years DT is able to claim her.
Click me, click me!
Our CO is every other year for SS. But the first year DH tried to claim SS, we found out BM already had. Long story short, the IRS doesn't give rats about the CO. Whoever has the child more than 50% gets to claim them. Basically they told us all we could do was take her to court for contempt. So even if she does try to claim them both (or one if you deicde not to let her have either) you can report her, and you win win that arguement in a second.
But like Hind said, you can claim the child as a dependent seperately from claiming the EIC. This is what DH gerts to do every other year now, I think it's a whopping $60 or something.
We also found out last year there is a $1000 (I think) child tax credit that be claimed seperately (but together) friom the EIC. If I remember right, you have to claim them as a dependent, but you can't claim the EIC.
I find this interesting because as long as you provied a copy of the court order stating who gets to claim each year you should be fine, unless you DH was behind. I know orders done after a certain year say that the non costodial parent has to not be behind on CS.
I find this interesting because as long as you provied a copy of the court order stating who gets to claim each year you should be fine, unless you DH was behind. I know orders done after a certain year say that the non costodial parent has to not be behind on CS.
I find this interesting because as long as you provied a copy of the court order stating who gets to claim each year you should be fine, unless you DH was behind. I know orders done after a certain year say that the non costodial parent has to not be behind on CS.
I don't remember for sure, ut I'm pretty sure this was the year after all the back pay was caught up from before the order was in place. Basically, the CO says he gets to claim him as a dependent every other year. And taht's exactly what he gets. Never the EIC. But if I remember correctly, the two have different requirements. Basically, our CO wasn't specific enough, and BM ran with it.