@Mjkacmom so did my D and I. My D and I went out of state for college and we didn’t register to vote in those states. I did stay in the state I attended college after graduation, but I registered to vote and declared residency when I graduated and got a job in that state. My D moved back to our state after graduation…
My kids did absentee ballots because they knew our hometown issues and were more vested in them than in the issues of their college towns. They all attended in state schools.
If your child is able to get in state residency and lowered tuition, might that not be a better deal than a $500 credit? Assuming that it’s a possibility in whatever state your child is in.
At least in IN, it doesn’t apply for tuition purposes.
It is federal law that determines who can vote (residents of that state, district, territory) but state law that determines who is a resident. Some states define resident as one who lives there on election day, others 30 days before the election, others 90 days. Federal law has determined the state can’t require the potential voter to own property or to even have a permanent structure to live in (homeless can vote). There have been a lot of court rulings on voter registration rules and whether the state requirements are fair. Federal rulings have made it easier for college students to register at their OOS colleges, but that makes them a resident of that state for voting purposes (can only be registered in one state for federal elections) and the state can impose other duties on its residents like jury duty, requirement to get an instate driver’s license (if that resident wants to drive). Some states do let residents vote in local elections if they have property in that state without voting in federal elections.
If a parent owns a car, that doesn’t mean the student would have to register the car in the new state. It’s really not the student’s car to register and that student is just using the car that belongs to another person.
It is easy enough to be a resident of the state to vote by being there 30 days before the election, voting, and then withdrawing the registration or registering back at the parents’ residence if the parent is concerned about the $500 credit. The parent could also rent the college residence and then the student would be in a parent’s residence for most of the year.
A student living in a college abode that is rented or owned by a parent in a state where the student has claimed legal residence, while the parents live in and are themselves residents of a different state, is not nearly the same thing as the student “living with” a parent who is considering claiming the student as a dependent for tax purposes. In other words, living in a home that is owned or rented by a parent does not necessarily mean a person is living with a parent, which is one of the tests to be a qualifying child.
Anyone familiar with how in state vs out of state residency is determined by universities in the state of ALABAMA?
I had heard that a student coming from another state would have to have worked a full time job in Alabama for at least a year to be determined to be an Alabama (instate) resident. So an out of state student could go there as a college freshman, decide they really like it and want to live there full time in future years, thus effectively “moving ” there but , for tuition purposes, would not be considered instate. Student would have to work a full time job for at least a year while going to school,
I’m answering, but really, you would get better answers by starting your own thread, since your question is not what this is about.
Didn’t your son get a scholarship that reduces the cost to attend UAH already?
IIRC a student cannot establish instate residency while attending Alabama. And especially NOT if their parents continue to reside in another state.
In the vast majority of cases, student residency for tuition purposes is based on where the parents reside.
There are some states which allow students to be instate status after a year…Utah is one.
@mom2collegekids is this the case in Alabama?
@cmvaz1 Residency for the purposes of in-state tuition is completely different to residency for tax purposes. States want you to move there and pay taxes. They don’t want you to move there and get a discount on tuition. Only Utah and (I think) Missouri allow a child to move there and become entitled to in-state tuition while remaining financially dependent on their parents (and there are still various physical presence and intent to reside tests that must be passed). Your question about Alabama is basically about how to establish that you are financially independent of your parents (in that case by working) so you can seek in-state tuition. Other possibilities include getting married to a resident of the state (apparently being used at UC Berkeley: http://www.dailycal.org/2017/12/03/til-debt-do-us-part-uc-berkeley-students-married-save-thousands-tuition/).
Note that financial dependence on parents is one, but not the only, test you must pass for your parents to take the dependent tax credit (which is what this thread is about).
There is an awful lot of confusion here.
As Twoin18 made clear, “residency for voting purposes” and “residency for tuition purposes” are two very different things. In most states, in limited circumstances you could actually be a tuition resident without being a voting resident, but for the most part residency that would entitle you to vote is necessary but nowhere near sufficient for tuition purposes.
The question addressed by this thread, however, is not whether a student is a resident of his or her college state for voting purposes, but whether declaring him- or herself a resident of that state for voting purposes means that he or she ipso facto fails to qualify as the parents’ dependent because the presence at college is no longer considered a “temporary” absence from their parents’ home.
Obviously, that is an interesting hypothetical question, and it would be fun to argue it every which way. But the IRS has said forever, understanding that college students often do not live at home, that living at or near your college while a full-time undergraduate student is considered a temporary absence that does not affect your status as your parents’ dependent. I cannot imagine the IRS raising the argument presented in this thread based solely on a student’s registration to vote at college. If it did raise that argument, there would be a firestorm of criticism and immediate Congressional hearings. The population of people with children who go to college far from home and who can benefit from a $500 non-refundable tax credit is a population of people with outsized political connections and importance in both major parties. Not going to happen.
I tend to agree with @JHS’s opinion that the IRS would not crack down on kids who simply register to vote without understanding the consequences. But if they go further and start filing state tax returns as a resident (which they are theoretically obliged to do if they have taxable earnings) then it would bolster the argument that they (and their parents) must have thought through the full tax consequences of the decision.
Sure, if the student hasn’t taken affirmative action to abandon the state where they previously lived at home with their parents and where the parents still live. In the case of OP’s daughter, registering to vote in UT was a declaration that her intent was to make her residence in UT permanent or indefinite. In other words, she was no longer temporarily absent from CA.
Really? First of all, the act of registering to vote isn’t one without consequences and implications beyond simply being able to vote in a different state. If that’s all it was, the IRS wouldn’t care. The IRS clearly details what makes someone a qualifying child who can be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax return, and a key test is if the child is living with the taxpayer for more than half of the tax year. Temporary absences while away at school are an allowed exception, but it’s hard to argues that the absence is temporary if the child has declared a different state to be their residence on a permanent or indefinite basis.
I’m willing to bet that in most of the cases where a student registers to vote at school in a state away from home and the parent continues to claim the student as a tax dependent, the parent is unaware of the possible tax rule violation, and therefore there is no intent to perpetrate a fraud. Also, I’m willing to bet that the IRS is not actively cross checking new student voter registrations against tax dependent claims. I don’t see a firestorm of criticism and immediate Congressional hearings in the near future regarding this issue. OP asked about the interaction between a child registering to vote in a state other than their home state and the eligibility to be claimed as a dependent on a parent’s federal tax return. In my opinion, the implications of registering to vote in a new state (and thereby becoming a legal resident of that state) combined with a clear reading of the IRS dependency rules reaches an obvious conclusion. Kudos to OP for thinking in broad terms and seeking information that will properly guide future actions.
Nobody is checking voting rolls. My daughter registered to vote in another state when she graduated college and made her permanent residence there (did all the stuff properly - changed her driver’s license, voting, library, bank mailing address, etc.) It has been 3 years. Each time I go to vote her name is still on the list in her old home state (alphabetically adjacent to mine) .
This is a common problem. Typically, a voter registration form asks if the registrant has previously registered somewhere else. If the proper answer is yes and the registrant provides the requested information on where the previous registration was, the registration authority at the new location is supposed to inform the authority at the previous location of the new registration, so that the registrant can be taken off the rolls. Given how government bureaucracies often work, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this process doesn’t always work the way it should.
A dependent can be a qualifying child or relative. Maybe she qualifies as a dependent relative even if she didn’t live with you.
Definitely true, but the missing piece is the number of above that have the resources to go away to college AND register to vote in local elections. My bet is that number that vote in the new, temp locale ain’t that large. Instead, many college aged folks just vote absentee at the home in which their parents reside.
One can be a dependent without necessarily being a qualifying dependent, although maybe these days under the new tax laws it’s only qualifying dependents that matter?
“A dependent can be a qualifying child or relative. Maybe she qualifies as a dependent relative even if she didn’t live with you.”
@mommdc The rules for taking a dependent tax credit are even stricter if that person isn’t your child, they must live with you for the entire year (and meet the limitations on earnings). As @colfac92 says, she is definitely a financial dependent (not providing more than half of her own support, which excludes her from other tax benefits like the refundable AOTC), just not one that qualifies for the purposes of the dependent tax credit.
Actually, the registrars of voters should be doing a voter check on a somewhat regular basis. Around here, if a voter hasn’t voted for over three years, they are placed on the inactive list.
On a schedule, the voter records are checked. Each household receives a snail mail letter which asks that any changes be made and returned.
Also, any elector can go into any town hall or wherever voters are registered in your community…at any time…and ask that their names be removed from the voter list in your town. You can’t do this for your kids, but they can do it for themselves.
My kids both sent letters to our town clerk saying they were registered in another state…card asked to be removed.
I’ve run voter registration drives in three different states (where I’ve lived at various stages of my life) and can promise you that a shockingly high number of college students are not registered ANYWHERE, and if they are, their voting rates are lower than the folks here on CC would expect.
So the number of families who will be impacted by a kid registering in the wrong place/two places/absentee ballot issues etc- we should ALL be so lucky to have that as a national issue!
I’ve heard every excuse in the book for not registering to vote (and this was when I was standing there with a clipboard and all the paperwork ready to go. My favorite is “I can’t register to vote because I didn’t register for the draft when I turned 18” (this from a young woman- who is NOT required to register for the draft, and one has nothing to do with the other). There’s also “I can’t register to vote because I have a few hundred dollars in parking tickets back home and I don’t want the police to be able to find me here in my college town”. etc.
@blossom - It is appalling to me the amount of voter apathy in this country. We’ve instilled in our DD since she was little that being an informed voter is a civic obligation. She and I spent HOURS and HOURS on FaceTime showing her nonpartisan websites where she could research information on her local issues, reading newspaper articles, and trying to dig into the history behind their state amendment issues. I was proud of her for putting in so much time and taking her first election seriously. Sounded like the polling places were packed on her campus so that was very heartening!