If more than one taxpayer could claim your child, that is, if the child meets the relationship, age, residence, and support test for you and another person(s), tax law allows only ONE person to claim the child as a qualifying child.

You and the other person(s) will therefore have to agree on who will claim the child for a particular year. If you and the other person(s) cannot agree on who will claim the child, the IRS tiebreaker rules will then come into effect, and will decide who will claim the child. The tiebreaker rules state that:

• If only one of the persons is the child’s parent, the child is the qualifying child of the parent. Read More