Dependent tax question

jimsmythee · 2023-05-24T16:43:55+00:00

Generally the court will tell each side to take one kid for tax purposes. Unless it's lopsided.

In my divorce, the judge ruled that I would take my older kid every year, and I would take my younger kid every odd year.

So the first tax year that we were divorced, I filed and I shot my exwife a text message, "as per our divorce decree, I will be taking both kids as tax deductions." She didn't reply.

Everything went ok. But about two months later I got a screaming call from her. She did her taxes and her only settlement from the divorce was 50% of my 401k. 401k $'s are pre-tax dollars. She had spent it all and had nothing to show for it. But she had to pay income taxes on that money she pulled out. The IRS does a withholding on a percentage of that money, but since she didn't have any dependents that tax year to claim, she ended up owing a crap ton of money to both the IRS and to the State revenue. I laughed so hard...

WartimeDad · 2023-05-24T16:00:31+00:00

I think the norm is to alternate years. The biggest bang for your buck likely depends on your financial situation.

Throwawaysi1234 · 2023-05-24T16:05:55+00:00

Either one should be fine but fair warning that if your ex has 51% physical custody she might have a legal basis for taking all of it

Reflog1791 · 2023-05-24T16:16:28+00:00

You need to get Head of Household filing status!!

Alternate years with HoH. Whatever you want with the child tax credits.

Urotsukid0ji · 2023-05-25T18:35:50+00:00

You need this to be defined in your custody or divorce decree. Taking one kid each is going to work well for the next several years until your 4 year old is no longer a dependent. Then, what do you do with the now 1 year old? Get this in writing.

Title	Dependent tax question
Author	rpm04004
Upvotes	5
Comments	16
Date	May 24, 2023 3:50 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/13qpck5/dependent_tax_question/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/dependent-tax-question.1220208 https://theredarchive.com/post/1220208

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