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William and I share custody exactly 50/50. * * *
However, I don’t think that there’s any way that anyone
can document the amount of time that each child was in
the house.
It’s not the intention of shared custody to try to
finagle a tax exemption out of it, or else we would be
marking every single minute that the child was in one
house or the other.
Diana goes to school in San Francisco, and I live
in San Francisco, so she often stops by at other times
in my house. I’ve picked her up when she’s sick, and
of course I’m going to let her go on vacation with her
father, because that’s to her benefit to have a
vacation with her father, and as I mentioned, * * * he
documented what he believes was his calendar, but he
has no way of documenting my calendar or of knowing
Diana’s whereabouts at every minute when she’s 14 years
old.
So it completely defeats the purpose of a shared
custody. It’s for Diana’s benefit. It’s not to try
and manipulate it in order to get a tax exemption, and
I think it’s ridiculous for him to even introduce that
idea.
Ms. Rogers further stated “My position is that * * * she was with
us equally”.
Ms. Rogers’ testimony was delivered in a convincing manner,
obviously without regard to tax consequences, and we believe her
testimony. Mr. Lautenberger’s testimony was not delivered in a
convincing manner, and his documentary evidence is not
convincing.
These consolidated cases cried out for some reasonable
settlement between petitioners, particularly since respondent is
merely a disinterested stakeholder concerned only that the
dependency exemption and the child tax credit not be taken twice
for the same child. Petitioners did not take that route despite
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Last modified: May 25, 2011