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Question on claiming children on taxes

vickimill26's picture

Submitted by vickimill26 on Thu, 04/17/2014 - 1:59pm

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Family Court

Does anyone know who can claim the children on their taxes? My DH has joint legal custody, but BM is the Parent of Primary Residence. He was ordered liberal visitation (never really got that), and his other court ordered Parenting time.
She has been claiming all three children since the divorce, DH thinks they should be alternating. However, he has never followed through on it up til now.
Anyone have any experience with this subject? Does it have to be in the final order of divorce?

hereiam's picture

Submitted by hereiam on Thu, 04/17/2014 - 2:04pm

Basically, if it's not in the divorce decree and they live with her the majority of the time, she gets to claim them.

If she agrees to alternating years, be sure and get her to sign form 8332 the years your DH claims them.

vickimill26's picture

Submitted by vickimill26 on Thu, 04/17/2014 - 2:08pm

Thanks. That's what I thought. And she would never sign that! LOL. That would mean her giving up money.

hereiam's picture

Submitted by hereiam on Thu, 04/17/2014 - 2:34pm

Oh, the divorce decree is not the end all, be all, by any means.

It was in DH's that he got to claim SD every year, BUT he still had to have form 8332 signed by BM (which it stated that she HAD to do). Having it in the decree just gave us a leg to stand on when she refused to sign 8332, as we could take her to court for contempt. And we did.

Orange County Ca's picture

Submitted by Orange County Ca on Thu, 04/17/2014 - 3:44pm

Contempt? Good for you. I wish others had the gumption and where with all.

I had to haul my ex in twice because she though she could do whatever she wanted.

Funny thing though we never disagreed over support, just visitation. Ya never know what floats their boat.

MrsK Dawg's picture

Submitted by MrsK Dawg on Sun, 06/08/2014 - 8:06am

Yep. We are about to go to mediation then probably court and this is one issue, Contempt.
DH's divorce was final the year the form 8332 started being a requirement. Apparently his attorneys were unaware of this. There is no mention of form 8332 in his papers. BM claimed one of the girls (agreement says he gets both) and the IRS is coming after us for two different years worth of the deduction. We sent her form 8332 several times and she's refused to sign it, even returning it ripped in half. Our attorneys called that bring "stubbornly litigious" and she forced us into court over it, so I am hoping we are awarded some relief there.

My concern is that apparently DH original attys did not calculate CS properly and that BM might be going after back CS since 2008. I wonder if we would have any recourse against original attys? They both signed and agreed to the CS and he's paid it faithfully for years on both girls until the oldest graduated, and still pays for SD12 as outlined in their agreement.

vickimill26's picture

Submitted by vickimill26 on Thu, 04/17/2014 - 2:43pm

Thanks everyone, DH is being a little pig-headed about this. I'm pretty sure he has no legal standing, he keeps saying he pays the CS and has the expenses when they are with us that he has the right to.
I know for a fact, she will never sign anything to that effect, she tries to milk him out of $7, she won't give up that much. We plan to alter the custody order next year, so we can try to add that in. Sign it or be in contempt! Love it!

Rags's picture

Submitted by Rags on Sun, 06/08/2014 - 8:25am

In the situation you describe the tax credit goes to the parent with the time majority. Pretty simple.