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What they did have was a divorce case that wasn’t finished yet,
plus an order from a State court awarding temporary custody of
both children to Mr. Wentland. Ms. Anderson’s problem, then, is
that the advice she got was wrong, because her divorce was not
final until August 2000. This means that the divorce decree
didn’t apply to her 1999 taxes.
In this kind of situation, the Tax Code says that a taxpayer
like Ms. Anderson must prove she gave more than half of the
support for her daughter before she can claim her as a dependent.
See sec. 152(a). This is very hard to do--first Ms. Anderson
would have to prove the total amount of support Stephanie
received during the year, including any food, clothing, and
shelter that Stephanie got from her grandmother as well as Mr.
Wentland. At trial, Ms. Anderson truthfully said that in 1999
her daughter was mostly living with Mr. Wentland’s mother. Even
though Ms. Anderson paid the child support the state court told
her to, and paid for extras too, we find that she did not show
that she paid for more than half of all her daughter’s expenses
in 1999. Therefore, Ms. Anderson could not claim her daughter as
a dependent on her 1999 tax return.
The Government also claims that Ms. Anderson should have
filed as “married filing separately” instead of “single” or “head
of household.” While it may be true that Ms. Anderson should
have filed as “married filing separately” because her divorce was
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Last modified: May 25, 2011