Ref....

[LAK]

I was looking something up on the IRS website and came across a section in where someone can qualify as a relative for dependent purposes if they lived in the household the whole year as a family member.

Example 1—return not required.

You support an unrelated friend and her 3-year-old child, who lived with you all year in your home. Your friend has no gross income, is not required to file a 2007 tax return, and does not file a 2007 tax return. Both your friend and her child are your qualifying relatives if the member of household or relationship test, gross income test, and support test are met.

Member of Household or Relationship Test
To meet this test, a person must:

Live with you all year as a member of your household



It looks like the BF in the sitch below can claim the child.  I thought that was the case when I posted that the BF could claim the child by saying he provided over half of the support, but I've never had a client in that situation so I wasn't 100% positive.

[Ref]

I'm wrong. That was a big twist for me. I never heard of that one before.

I sent the OP a PM letting him know about the mistake, incase he doesn't read this. Poor guy.

Anyway, I guess besides the kick in th ba!!s the OP gets, it doesn't change anything for him. He still can't claim.

Thanks for checking up on that and keeping me honest.

Ref

[LAK]

he will get a CO.

This is an example of one of the "gray" areas I was talking about.  The IRS is great at making exceptions to their own rules.  I was just reading about one regarding Head of Household and separated couples.  Generally you have to have a legal separation to file anything but married filing separately, but if you lived apart for the last six months of the year and have children you can file head household even though you are not legally separted.  But the other spouse still has to file married filing separately.

Now, let's hope I don't get yelled at for not taking this to the off topic board :)

[MixedBag]

That's the rule I actually used many many years ago with EX#1.