Can I claim my sister on my taxes?

My younger sister is 10 years old. She lives with my dad in the next town over from me. We have different mothers. Her mother lives 2 hours away, and Hanna (my sister) hasn't spent more than a week with her in a year. Hanna spends her weekends with me, and I pay for everything she needs, because my father does not work more than selling shrimp on the weekends. He can't claim her, because he doesn't do taxes each year.

I have been told that I CAN claim my sister this year, because she mainly lived with me and my wife, and I supported her.

Well this is the question. My father was never married to Hanna's mother, so neither of them have "custody", Hanna just lives with my dad this passed year. He is the father on her birth certificate.
He is going to sign the form allowing us to claim her this year.

So, if we claim Hanna, and her mother tries to claim her also, what will happen? FYI- her mother and is a drug addict... so she's likely to fight to claim Hanna just to get the money, like she did last year.

Could she even have a case, if her daughter NEVER lived with her for the entire year?

Additional Details
Wow, apparently from the answers so far, none of you understand what my question was, or tax laws.
First off, yes you can claim a brother, sister, and step siblings.
Second, it's not my mom that is claiming Hanna, it's me, I'm 20. I support her and have OUR father's written permission to claim her, since he does not do taxes, and Hanna has not lived with her mother all year long.

In general the answer to your question is that you are unable to claim your sister as a qualifying relative. The reason for this is that according to IRS rules your sister is the qualifying child of your father. The fact that he does not file a tax return (for some reason) does not change anything. This is assuming that your sister lives with her father for more than half the year. If instead your sister lives with you more than half the year and you provide more than half of the support then you would be able to claim her as a qualifying relative (assuming that the mom does not provide more than half the support for your sister and does not have any court documents granting her the deduction).

Your father signing a paper granting you the right to claim the deduction is not relevant. It is the facts on who your sister lives with and who provides over half the support which will determine it.

You are correct that a half sister qualifies for the deduction if the support and residency qualifications are met.

Living with you on weekends isn't "mainly living with you". You yourself said she lives with your dad - that in itself says you can't claim her as a qualifying child, even if you paid for everything all year for her.

Your dad can't sign a form allowing you to claim her. He is the "custodial parent" by IRS rules even if there is no formal custody agreement, since she lives with him over half the time - as custodial parent, he could sign a form allowing the non-custodial parent to claim her, but not you or anyone else. Never being married to her mom has nothing to do with anything as far as the IRS is concerned.

Read the rules. Yes you can claim a sibling (or half-sibling) as a qualifying child IF THEY LIVE WITH YOU FOR MORE THAN HALF THE YEAR. It sounds like you meet all the rules but that one. If you try to claim her, odds are that you'll be asked to prove it through things like her school records - and just how will you do that?

There is some chance that you could claim her as a qualifying relative if you can show that YOU provide over half of her total support for the year - living with you isn't a requirement for claiming her as a qualifying relative, but since she spends the week with dad, even that probably doesn't work, since the shelter,food and whatever else he provides is part of her support. If you could claim her as a qualifying relative, you'd get an exemption for her, but not a child tax credit or any other child related credit, just the exemption. To do that she couldn't be anyone else's qualifying child. You said your dad doesn't file taxes. If that's because he truly doesn't have any taxable income, then maybe it works. But if he collects welfare for him and Hannah, then that would be a major issue with you claiming her. If you mean that he works under the table, and you claim her, it probably just ends up opening a can of worms with the IRS - they'll wonder how he lives with no income, and he'll be busted, and your claim will be denied. I could make an argument though that that would serve him right. Selling shrimp on the weekends IS taxable income, and he's required to file if he makes over $400 per year at it. And he'll have a hard time convincing the IRS that he supports a house for him and Hannah (during the week) on under $400 a year. And by the way, the IRS has started looking closely when people claim children who aren't their children, as dependents.

If you claim her and her mom claims her, the IRS will investigate. Unless your dad signed a form allowing HER to claim Hannah, which doesn't sound very likely, her claim will be denied. Oddly enough, if he did, she could legally claim her even if she didn't provide any support at all, or even see her all year. But doesn't sound like your dad is about to sign over the exemption to her, so not an issue.

But everything I've said above about your claim would still also apply - your claim would most likely also be denied, and your dad very likely busted if he's illegally evading taxes.

Judy has given you an extremely detailed and 100% accurate answer. I can't add anything to it of any material value. Most of the other respondents are only partially correct and some are downright wrong.

Take Judy's advice and give her the points! She's easily given you $50 of sound advice for free; a fair trade in anyone's book!

The IRS uses a "uniform definition of qualifying child" under which ONLY your dad can claim her. Since he can claim her, you can't. Since he can claim her, your mom can't unless he gives her permission to.

If your sister meets the "qualifying relative" tests, then it may be possible. This test includes multiple items that must be met in full to qualify. I have included the link below...

First, neither "the form allowing us to claim her" nor "OUR father's written permission to claim her" has any effect, because that form applies only to transferring the claim from one parent to the other parent and any other form of "written permission", except divorce decrees, never has any effect on whether a person can be claimed.

Second, that he "can't claim her, because he doesn't do taxes each year" does not matter, because if he would have been able to claim her, if he had done his taxes, then it is illegal for you to claim her.

You might be able claim her ONLY if it would have been illegal for him to claim her, even he had done his taxes for the year and had not signed the permission form.

Sometimes what seems like the fair thing to do is not the legal thing to do. I think that she needs to live in your household in order to be claimed.
You probably should attempt to get legal custody of her as her real mom according to you is UNFIT. You do need a lawyer to get this out of the way once and for all.
Otherwise, you are providing charity for your sister and you can't write it off. You provide as a parent would, but you are not legally considered as her parent or guardian.

If she is under age yes, but other than that no.

This is a difficult situation. Technically you can't claim her because she's not your daughter, but also like in the case (hypothetically) that you adopted her you could claim her, so you also, since you pay for everything she needs and she's not allowed by law to live with anyone else, yes, you can claim her. And no, her mother, if you have proof that she's addicted to drugs, cannot claim hannah because of her addiction. I don't really know... ask the government!

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment:

Archive: Forum -Forum -Finance - Links - 1 - 2 - RSS - All RSS Feeds
The Causes and the Results. 0.014
Copyright (c) 2011 Financial Crisis Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - Terms of use - Privacy Policy