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provide the Court with any evidence of these additional amounts
spent. Moreover, and most importantly, petitioners could not
provide this Court with evidence of the amount of total support
expended on K.M. from all sources during the year in issue. It
is, in fact, only this evidence that could prove that petitioners
did indeed provide more than half of K.M.’s support in the year
at issue, thus entitling them to claim a deduction for her under
section 152(e)(2)(A)(ii).
Irrespective of the foregoing, petitioners maintain their
entitlement to the exemption deduction with respect to K.M.
because of the terms of the aforementioned judgment giving Mr.
Crane the right to claim K.M. as a dependent so long as “he is
current in his child support obligations.” The record is silent
as to any evidence contrary to the fact that, during the year in
issue, Mr. Crane was compliant with his support obligations;
however, although the judgment provides that Mr. Crane is
entitled to the dependency exemption in 2002 for K.M., is it well
settled that State courts, by their decisions, cannot determine
issues of Federal tax law. See Commissioner v. Tower, 327 U.S.
280 (1946); Miller v. Commissioner, 114 T.C. 184 (2000).
Unfortunately, irrespective of what is contained in the judgment
as to Mr. Crane’s right to claim a dependency exemption for K.M.,
the law is clear that petitioners are entitled to a dependency
exemption in the 2002 taxable year if, and only if, they are in
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Last modified: November 10, 2007