Applying Dependency Tax Exemptions to my Divorce

Dependency exemptions for the children are allocated between the parties by the court and it depends on the relative income of both parties. If there is a situation where one party would be what we call ‘wasting’ the exemption, meaning it has no beneficial impact on the amount of taxes that they have to pay then the other party will typically get the exemption. If however both parties benefit from the exemption and there is, for instance, one child, the general rule of thumb on that is if that child’s dependency exemption would get alternated. If there are more than one child of two children, then generally they would be split, again as long as both parents have a need and a use for the dependency exemption and it’s a benefit and tax-wise. If there are three children, it might for instance get to be two children, one year for one parent, one child for the other parent and then reverse the following year. In any case, there has to be and you can look this up on the IRS website (irs.gov) a form ‘8332’ that needs to be filled-out to release the dependency exemption to the other parent and that generally gets filed with the tax return.

This informational blog post was provided by Cynthia Hanley, an experienced Massachusetts Divorce Lawyer.