I've been divorced for four years. For the first three we had shared custody and she claimed him as a dependent and I filed as Head of Household.
Last year she [45F] and my son [14M] weren't getting along. We went to court in March 2018 and she voluntarily gave up custody of him. Even when we had shared custody he always spent more time with me, but I now have full custody. She still lives in the same town as us but he hasn't spent a single day with his mother since January 2018. I cover all of his costs, provide his health insurance, and she even pays me a nominal amount of child support (which, out of kindness to her, I agreed to have it be a smaller amount than what the state formula said it should be.)
Our court filings declare:
- I am "designated the residential parent and legal custodian of the parties' minor child"
- My ex-wife is "designated the non-residential parent."
- Division of Dependents: "Father shall claim the following dependent(s) [My son] for all federal, state, and local income tax purposes
Last night I used TurboTax, as usual, to e-file my taxes they got rejected. I got this message:
R0000-507-1 - A dependent on your return has already been claimed on another return.
I texted my ex-wife about it. She said that she did file her taxes with him as her dependent and that she thought I was going to file as head of household again. I'm a bit incredulous at this point. Did she forget the fact that we went to court, that she gave up custody, and has practically nothing to do with her only child anymore?!
So, what do I do now? Do I have to force her to file an amended return? She always files her taxes really early so what do I do if she already received a tax return? Will I still be able to e-file or will I have to get a lawyer or an accountant involved? Is this a big enough red flag that now we're going to get audited or something?
I'm a bit incredulous, more than a little annoyed, and have no idea how to even start trying to handle a situation like this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Update:
I sent her a photo of the court document where it said I got to claim him as dependent and told her that she needed to refile her tax return. Her response was "If you figure out what the difference would be if you filed with him as a dependent I'll write you a check for the difference"
I suppose that would be the easiest solution, but it pisses me off to shift the burden of fixing this onto me. It's certainly easier for her, but I'd be the one who has to do the work to make up for her being thoughtless. Going to court or paper filing and making the IRS sort it out would delay the whole process, probably be a red flag on my account, and delay me getting my tax return money for a long time until they get it sorted out.
Not sure if I should go the "easy" route and just redo my return without him as a dependent and make her pay me. Our relationship has improved to the point that we're still very distant but at least we're no longer hostile toward each other, which I feel is better for our son. I'm concerned that if I go after her and make a fight out of it then things will sour again and that isn't good for any of us. I've wanted her to still be in his life in some way and don't want to kill any of the progress that's been made lately.
Submitted February 26, 2019 at 09:22AM by Spicy-McHaggis https://ift.tt/2TnzXq6
