<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> Well, maybe I'm wrong, but it's Sat. here and I won't know til Mon. Just found out today from tax prep service that efile was rejected because ONE of four SSN#s (H, me, DD, and DS) has already been filed under. Hmmm, Took DD's biofather to court (started proceedings last Nov) in March. Weird coincidence. This has never happened before and we have used same tax prep service for years.

H and i know it could be something else, but is probably Mr. Slimeball.
So now what?!!

jls

And it was my B-day yesterday, did nothing 'cause of kids and now don't feel good.

Thats called TAX FRAUD!!! If he put the kid down as a dependent and didn't have physcial custody greater than 6 months, he will have some fun and expensive times with the NO SENSE OF HUMOR GANG of the IRS!!!!

He has never had custody of her for 10 minutes! And has no legal right to claim her. It's just that I know that this happens wwith divorced couples alot (we were never married).

Ohh well, i guess I 'll find out Mon. if this is what happened and what kind of repercussions there will be. I am certainly not looking forward to another mess (just got done with court). On the other hand, hope it's not identity theft either!!!!

Thanks for your reponse and this is one time that I HOPE the IRS has no sense of humor.

jls

this happens quite often...i'll post later about my experience

Don't panic; it happened to me, too. In my case, for the tax year in question (2003), I believe I'm the one with the legal right to have DD as a dependent. Because of changes in our custody and changes in the tax laws, it's not clear what's correct in 2004 and 2005. Well, 2004 isn't clear. 2005 is clear: Unless I adopt DD, I have no legal right to claim her as a dependent no matter how much time she spends with me.

It's a generally rotten situation, but it is solvable. It takes getting your attorney involved if you can't settle it peacefully, but please remember that this is a financial issue rather than a kid issue. If you look at it from a monetary standpoint, it's a whole lot easier to deal with.

For example, if your DD's biological father is paying child support, he may well feel that he should have some tax benefit for the money he's paying. That's not unreasonable. Similarly, if you are paying a large fraction of your DD's living expenses, you, too, deserve a tax benefit for the money you're spending.

The question in my mind is what a reasonable split of those tax benefits would be. Take a look at the real costs associated with supporting your daughter and who's paying them.

Yes, you could simply say that he has no right under the law to ever claim your DD as a dependent. You may be correct about that. But it's not necessarily the solution that's actually fair to everyone. Hard to look at fairness when there is so much emotion involved, I know. But it's still worthwhile.

JustJ,

I respect the fact that emotions are involved. The man (and I use that term loosely) did not pay CS for 3 1/2 years (fought DNA test results to stall). Then I would not take him back to court until recently (she is 14 now) because of HIS spitefulness. He would want visitation, only out of spite, he has never cared about her well-being. As a matter of fact, he told her, DD, that it was HER fault and she should have called him last year, after he came to see her 3X, only 4th and 5th time in her life!!!!! So he has been paying ALOT less than 20% of his pay for years. And we (stepdad and I ) spend alot of our income on our kids, including expensive private school for D, because she NEEDED the academic challenge.

This is simply a case of him being angry about court, because I NOW get almost 20% (not quite, because I get tax deduction), and I only took him back to court because she is older now and he wouldn't give me the insurance info last year after she was in the hospital. That put him in contempt of court and I thought it was time anyway!!! I think (and have been told) that I have been TOO nice, for my Ds sake.

jls

My DD's dad and I started switching years to claim her, every other.

Unfortunately what I didn't know was I can no longer claim the very expensive child care I had for her all last summer.

And he doesn't have to pay child care because he has a wife and a gazillion relatives to help out for free. He also makes 3 times as much money as I do and doesn't pay CS (we have 50/50).

I am like JJ in I refuse to let it rile me, but for you jls whose DD's bio dad is a complete and utter [censored], I say make sure you fight this.

Thanks weaver,

I have refused to let the man get to me in the past, thinking that he may "come around" and for DDs sake, should be nice, not just polite. But fact remains that stepdad cares LOTS for her, biofather couldn't care any less. And he thinks we are out to get him, like when I called for the insurance card update last year. How dare I call and bother him, all I wanted was money. I replied calmly, no just the hospital bill paid. Why didn't I call him when she went in? I said that I was sorry, and really just hadn't thought of it. --Why would I? He saw her 3X right around her 13th b-day and then stopped contact again. The hospital thing happened 7-8 months after we had last heard from him. It honestly never crossed my mind to call him, until I thought about his insurance (secondary). He was court ordered to carry ins on her, just hard to ever get info out of him, so never really used it once we had ins. ---

I guess that I should make this a moot point until 2moro when I find out, but how will I fight it anyway? This has never happened before!!

jls

Visit the IRS website, do a search in their search engine for "report fraud" and you will find an 800 number.

http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/

You're going to have to call them anyway to find out who used her SS# for sure.

Thanks weaver. I looked on the website, but no 800 numbers up til 2moro!!!

jls