Taxes

[Renee]

In my husbands divorce decree he allowed her to claim all five of the children for income tax purposes (that is the only way she would sign).  He is responsible for 67% of the support of the children and that is the only income she has (she works here and there but mostly doesn't work at all).  We end up having to claim the money paid for child support but yet she doesn't have to claim it as income.  We now have the kids anywhere from 10-12 days a month during the school year and every other week in the summer.  We are planning on going before the judge sometime before the 2007 taxes and seeing if he will modify the divorce decree to allow us to claim possibly 2 children one year and then 3 the next.  Does anyone know the best way to go about this?  We are keeping receipts already.  Also, is it unheard of that this happens?  Any advice would be appreciated.

[Jade]

>In my husbands divorce decree he allowed her to claim all
>five of the children for income tax purposes (that is the only
>way she would sign).  He is responsible for 67% of the support
>of the children and that is the only income she has (she works
>here and there but mostly doesn't work at all).  We end up
>having to claim the money paid for child support but yet she
>doesn't have to claim it as income.  We now have the kids
>anywhere from 10-12 days a month during the school year and
>every other week in the summer.  We are planning on going
>before the judge sometime before the 2007 taxes and seeing if
>he will modify the divorce decree to allow us to claim
>possibly 2 children one year and then 3 the next.  Does anyone
>know the best way to go about this?  We are keeping receipts
>already.  Also, is it unheard of that this happens?  Any
>advice would be appreciated.

It's not unheard of for one parent to get all exemptions.  I got the exemptions for both of my kids through emancipation.  

Child support is not income to the CP as that is for the support of the children.  

It depends on what the agreement says.  The wording on mine is that I get both through emancipation.  And my ex signed it, I also had him initial each and every page of the agreement so that he couldn't pull any stunts (he had already reneged on one agreement) and try to change it.  If the wording is similar on the father's, then he may be out of luck.  

What he can do is keep track of his parenting time and file for a child support modification based on that.  He could also go to court and try to get the exemptions, but that may not be successful.  

[mistoffolees]

There are a lot of issues here that might change things.

First, if your family income is high enough, the exemptions are worth little or nothing to you. Exemptions start to phase out at something like $130 K for a married filer.

Second, if she's working even a little bit, she's probably gettting EIC when she files the taxes as head of household with 5 kids. The court may rule that taking the EIC away from her will cause the kids more harm than the benefit they get from you having the deductions.

Third, I don't know what you mean by 'claiming the money paid for child support'. Child support is not deductible on your return, nor is it income on her return. It is paid for the benefit of the kids - just as it would be if you had never divorced. Only court-ordered alimony is deductible.

You should probably do a bunch of math to determine the benift to you and the loss to her and then get with an attorney. It's quite possible that you'll find it isn't worth the trouble.

If you decide to go for it, I have no idea what to do. Your attorney can tell you. I can imagine that this is the kind of thing that courts don't really want to be bothered with and they're going to set a pretty high barrier for showing that there's a change in circumstance before they'll consider a change.

[Stirling]

If the BM is not working then she has no tax liability so the personal exemptions for the children are being wasted.  See if you can cut a deal with her when you would split the tax savings related to you claiming the children.  This way everyone comes out ahead.  

[Sherry1]

off of CS only for several years.  It was her only source of income and if I had that kind of money coming in, I wouldn't have worked either!

[mistoffolees]

In practice, I realize that this happens.

In principle, it should not. CS is for the kid(s). If the CP has no other income, what is he/she eating and wearing? Obviously, they're taking money that's supposed to be for the kids.

Seems to me that it should be possible to claim that they're stealing CS money, but I don't know if a judge would ever accept that.

[mistoffolees]

>If the BM is not working then she has no tax liability so the
>personal exemptions for the children are being wasted.  

This is not true.

The OP says that BM is working on occasion. That means that she's eligible for EIC - which makes these deductions very valuable, indeed.

[Jade]

>off of CS only for several years.  It was her only source of
>income and if I had that kind of money coming in, I wouldn't
>have worked either!

For tax purposes, it is not income to the CP.  

[Sherry1]

in rags half the time.  She used food stamps (that is how they ate) as well as medicaid (that is how they got medical attention).  DH was court ordered to pay health insurance, but with medicaid as her secondary insurance, she never had to pay a copay of any sort.  She lived with a boyfriend who paid the rent, but he didn't pay for anything else.  

She finally had no choice but to get off her ass and get a job when YSS committed juvenile felony at 12 and she was required to pay back restitution.  She couldn't swing that off of what she was getting for CS as well as support herself and her kids.

[notnew]

There are no laws regulating how the CP can use CS and there are accountability requirements. I disagree with this 100% however, I don't believe there will be any changes in this anytime soon.

HOWEVER, if she is receiving public assistance, another issue comes to light. The kids don't need medical assistance. She most likely has not informed DSS that they have health insurance through dad's court order. They may be interested in knowing this.

Also, they SHOULD know that she is getting CS and how much, meaning they should have a copy of the order or be communicating with CSE.

It is beyond me how these agencies cannot communicate!

How does she explain the BF? We all know a lot of people are on welfare living with someone so it must be easy to get around. However, I would definitely let DSS know the kids have health insurance and the medical assistance is being used as a secondary insurance. I don't think that is what it is intended for. JMHO

Pisses me off - our taxes paying for this crap!