QUESTION
Father pays support . Father does not see child as ordered. Last visit 8/2016. Can I claim child on taxes since he is not taking child for visitation
Asked on Jan 25th, 2017 on Family Law - Iowa
More details to this question:
Have a stipulated CS agreement since 2011. Father visited child approximately 18 days last year, as opposed to the roughly 130 days he is scheduled for. Father called child after Xmas to state he would take him to dinner sometime which was the first contact since 2016. Order stipulates we claim dependent alternating years. since father is not seeing child and i have all of the days can i claim child on taxes as dependent?
1 ANSWER
You cannot just take the deduction unless there was a triggering event in the agreement. Often, we will include langauge that you can take the deduction if the father is not current with support. If that is not in the agreement, or he is current, then you cannot take the deduction.
You should consider whether it would benefit you to file for modification if he is not taking the child as scheduled. If he got a reduction in support for agreeing to take the child 130 nights, then your support would go up if he took him less than 127 nights (the statutory cut-off).
If you woudl like to explore this option, you can contact an attorney. We do Modifications at my office.
Donna Miller
515-245-4300
Answered on Jan 30th, 2017 at 7:01 AM