Whose dependents are these children?

You don't state age of children, let's assume they're under age 19 and do not provide more than half of their own support, not do they receive any significant income.

First, need to determine if they are anyone's qualifying child (QC). Could the mother or the children be considered "temporarily absent"? If so, the children could be considered to live with the mother at least half of the year, and then they would be her QC and probably her dependents.

What about the other parent, or other close relatives? Where did the children live the other two months of the year?

If the children are no one's QC (primarily due to not living with a close relative for more than half of the year), then they could be someone's QR (qualifying "relative", a misleading term as no blood relation is necessarily required). However, for someone to be your QR if they are not related to you, they have to live with you for the entire 12 months, so that eliminates QR for the taxpayer.

Hence, the children don't appear to be anyone's dependents, since they are no one's QC or QR (unless there is a multiple support arrangement, I'd have to look that up for details). Being a QC or QR is a pre-requisite for being a dependent.

The household expenses paid by the mother are irrelevant, for two reasons: one, it is a matter of support, not household expenses, when considering QC or QR status. Second, for QC status, the only support that matters is that paid by the children themselves -- it has to be less than 50%. If they children met the residency test (12 months) for QR status, then it would matter whether or not the taxpayer paid over half of their support (which, again, is not the same thing as household expenses).

You might want to start with IRS Pub 17, or Pub 501 chapter "Exemptions for Dependents", for more information.

-Mark Bole

That would be meaningful for the QC support test, but taxpayer cannot claim these kids as QC because of the QC relationship test.

The QR support test would be necesary to see if the kids could be QRs, but the full year QR residency test is not met so even the QR support test is not sufficient.

Perhaps taxpayer wants to know if HoH applies? No, because the HoH relationship test requires the kids be close blood relatives.

Could they be the mother's QR? The amount the mother pays could be seen as the majority of the children's support (she pays their rent and food bill; those are probably the children's major expenses).

Aren't those household expenses support for the children?

Seth

The taxpayer who is "caring" for them does NOT get the dependency exemptions. Since these children are not related to him, they must live in his household for all 365 days (366 in leap years) of the year to qualify. They did not, so he loses.

The only other person who could qualify is the mother, who supposedly meets the 50%+ support test, as well as relationship and joint return tests. Although not stated, the citizenship/residency and gross income/age-exception tests may also be met.

Therefore, the mother gets the children because she is the only person who appears to qualify (despite the information technically being incomplete). However, it's possible that she doesn't qualify either.

I disagree with the other reply that says that payment of household expenses doesn't count toward support of the individual. It does, but must be prorated per person in the household. Maintenance of the household is indirect support.

I concur completely.

I agree if the mother can show that she provided more than half of the child's total support.

I agree completely with this point.

I would like to add that another reply mentioned that the child could still be the QC of the mother due to a temporary absence. If either the child or mother or both are temporarily absent from their home for any of the IRS recognized reasons, the child could meet the >6 months rule and be a QC if not self-supporting and meets the age requirement. A couple of examples: Maybe the mother placed the child with a close friend while accepting a temporary business assignment away from home or maybe the mother is too ill to care for the child.

Good point; possibly yes. We don't know how many kids, or how old they are.

I could easily see 1/2 of the rent and 1/2 of the household's food NOT adding up to 1/2 support for 3 hungry teen-agers with their own bedrooms vs. 1 adult.

Some might be.

-Mark Bole

Good, then we all agree with that part of my original reply, with the possible exception that the children might be QR's of the mother, or even QC's if temporary absence comes into play.

No one ever said, anywhere in this thread that I can see, that household expenses don't count toward support, so I'm not sure how you disagree with something that was never stated. However, I did point out that support and household expenses are not one and the same; in fact there are support costs not part of household expenses, and there are household expenses that are not part of support. It is usually necessary to fill out some worksheets to accurately determine who pays what amount of support for who.

In the OP, we were given almost no information about the total support costs of the kids, which would include clothing, transportation, education, travel, etc. We also don't know how much of the rent or food actually goes toward the kids' support, for example does the rent include a parking space, used only by the taxpayer?

There will be no definitive answer provided here without a lot more details.

-Mark Bole

Besides all the other replies, covering all the technical bases, you might also want to know what the IRS will look for if it comes to that.

Form 886-H-DEP from the IRS web site is a handy summary. Such things as day care, medical expenses, and where the money came from to pay for all of this (taxable income, non-taxable income, or assets) can come into play. The specific documents the IRS can request are listed on this form.

Ultimately, to answer your question will require filling out a support worksheet for each child, one is available in the IRS Pub 501 that I referred you to. A professional tax preparer should also be able to conduct a detailed interview and correctly capture this data for you.

-Mark Bole

What does the "vs. 1 adult" have to do with it? The resident adult is paying less for the children than the mother (because his half includes him, the mother's half doesn't) so the mother is paying more for the children than he is.

Rent and food (the children's share) certainly is.

Phone is arguable, perhaps, depending on age, whether the kids have cellphones, etc.

Seth

I th "The household expenses paid by the mother are irrelevant, for two reasons: one, it is a matter of support, not household expenses, when considering QC or QR status. Second, for QC status, the only support that matters is that paid by the children themselves -- it has to be less than 50%. If they children met the residency test (12 months) for QR status, then it would matter whether or not the taxpayer paid over half of their support (which, again, is not the same thing as household expenses)."

We are merely pointing out that they are not irrelevant. Support for a child includes the household expenses paid by the mother or what the IRS refers to as the cost of keeping up a home.

One cannot make a blanket assertion that all household expenses count for support. That is what I was getting at. For example (not the OP situation), mortgage payments (interest portion) do not in any way count as support, yet they are surely household expenses. Only the FMV of the lodging for the children would be counted as support, and if there are two kids (minimum number, based on OP) plus taxpayer in the household, then the taxpayer in the OP would be providing roughly 1/6 [2/3 - 1/2] of the lodging and food costs during the period of shared residence.

In the spirit of correcting fuzziness, I will also point out that most replies seem to assume that 1/2 of expenses for 10 months equals 50% on an annual basis, which I don't even need a calculator to know is wrong. That is why I asked in my original reply about where did the kids live the other two months, and what about the father? Maybe he is paying for their orthodontia, cell phones, and laptop computers, which would be a significant component of support. Or, if the kids are younger, you'd have to ask, who is paying for day care? Perhaps that is actually what the mother is paying the taxpayer for in the OP?

In short, based only the info provided in the OP and not trying to interpolate all kinds of missing facts, I think we would have to conclude that no one can claim the kids.

-Mark Bole

I took that as meaning that household expenses weren't to be counted at all; thus the wording in my response.

Other information regarding the situation: The father does not support the children in any way The mother moved to another state to take a job but plans to reclaim the children at some point The children are 12 & 13 and do not have any personal income

Would it be correct to conclude that the taxpayer definately cannot claim them as dependents because of the QR requirement that the children had to live with the taxpayer for the entire year?

Would the mother be able to claim the children if the support worksheet shows that she provided more then half the childrens support?

Exception to time lived with you. Temporary absences by you or the other person for special circumstances, such as school, vacation, business, medical care, military service, or detention in a juvenile facility, count as time the person lived with you. Also see Children of divorced or separated parents that begins on page 18 or Kid- napped child below.

If the mom is letting the kids stay in the old state to let them finish the school year, this looks like a temporary absence and thus the mom can claim the kids. She can't file HoH though.

Yes. See note below about support.

Yes. There is still the matter of the missing two months -- who provided the support for that period? If it was 100% mom, that will help tip the scale her direction.

The Form 886-H-DEP from the IRS that I mentioned in another reply is worth taking a quick look at. If no one else is going to try to claim the same dependents, it's (much) less likely the IRS will follow up with any requests for documentation on the dependency exemption.

However, if other benefits such as Earned Income Credit, Dependent Care Credit, and Additional Child Tax credit are being claimed, then the likelihood increases. Whoever claims the children should at least be aware of the types of documents that could be requested. Taking a position based on temporary absence should be something she can provide some support for as well, as a natural question would be, why didn't the kids move with her?

-Mark Bole

That leaves the mother paying 5/6.

Rather, we cannot conclude that anyone can claim them, it depends on further information not yet specified.

Seth

No, I meant taxpayer is paying 1/6 of *kids* lodging. He's still also paying 1/3 of his own lodging costs. It breaks down like this, if you assume two kids and allocate per capita (3 residents in rental unit total):

Taxpayer: 1/3 for self, 1/6 for kids Mom: 1/2 for kids

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Then, we're still only talking about 10 months. So the story for the remaining two months, for each kid, is still up in the air.

-Mark Bole

And the other 5/6 comes from where? The mother's half of the total is

He's paying 100% of his own lodging costs, which are 1/3 of the rent.

That's 5/6 of the year.

So the mother is paying 5/6 of the (rent and food) costs for 5/6 of the year, or 25/36 of the full year's (assuming it continues at the same rate).

Sure; if the mother pays all of it, her fraction is even higher; but if she pays none, she's still at 25/36 of the total.

Seth

Thanx, you're correct. I woke up this morning and before I got out of bed, realized I was the fuzzy one on the basic math here.

I probably should have stopped after my first reply.. :-(

-Mark Bole