My friend has full custody of her daughter. Her ex gets to claim her as a dependent. They do not live with him at all. He only sees them 3 hours one day once a week. The daughter turns 18 in August and will go off to college the same week. Will her mother who has custody get to claim her for the purposes of college tax credits? He barely pays support let alone provide anything for college (currently 8500 behind in support). Her FASFA will only contain info from her mothers income.
I’m confused. How can he claim her as a dependent if he doesn’t provide ANY support?
In order to claim the tax credit, she has to be a dependent on that parent’s taxes. When she turns 18, is the support over? If so, so would the court order of how the dependent tax exemption end, and then it would go back to the regular definition in the tax code (does the parent provide 50+% of the support, age, income, student status).
FAFSA doesn’t care about the tax status.
@thumper1, the dependent deductions/exemptions/credits are exceptions in the tax code. A divorce court can assign them, or the parents can give them to the ex-spouse without regard to the actual facts of support.
He is court ordered to pay support. They attempt to enforce it but the divorce decree states he gets to claim her. They don’t care that he falls behind because hes a dead beat haha
Yes support ends in August but that is 8 months of the year so the assumption is he gets to claim her for the full tax year since that is more than 6 months of the year. We are not concerned about the FASFA since she knows that is all based of the mother (custodial parents) income only. Just do not see how the mother and child will be responsible totally for all college expenses and not get the benefits of it. He will have no contact with the child after her 18th birthday. So does that mean that the loser of a father who will not contribute a single penny towards college will get to claim those college tax credits?
It is likely she will not get to claim the AOTC for 2017, but one can only claim it for 4 of the 5 tax years anyway, so she’ll still get the full value of the credit, just not this year. Make sure not to pay 2018 costs until 2018 (many schools bill in Dec for Jan semester). Do that all the way through and in spring '22, she’ll still have a credit to claim.
I will let her know to not pay until after the first of the year. THANKS! Even though that kind of sucks she doesn’t even have his last name anymore because she legally changed it in the spring. Well he won’t get it either because he won’t have access to the records and will be clueless that it is even possible. He won’t even probably know if she is going to school or have a clue as to where she would be.
If while the student is in college and potentially a qualifying student for the education credits the father continues to claim the student as a tax dependent, he would have to file IRS form 8863 to get one of the credits. Form 8863 requires specific information that would likely not be available to the father if in fact he will have no contact with the child after she turns 18.
Edited to add: to be clear, as long as the father continues to claim the student as a tax dependent, neither the student nor the mother can claim an education tax credit based on the student’s eligibility on their own tax return.
I’d have my lawyer write the dead beat dad that I am claiming the tax benefits, as he is so far behind. What is the worst that can happen? You have to appear in court and support your claim?