"cb162" <chrisb[at]planningsolutioninc.com> wrote

- quote -

The key term you have overlooked is ~more than~ 50% of the
time. One of you - and only one of you - can have custody
of the child for more than 50% of the year.

The two of you need to work it out before you both get audited.

--
Paul Thomas, CPA
paulthomascpapc[at]bellsouth.net

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cb162 wrote:

- quote -

To claim HOH status, the child who you claim as your
dependent must live with you for MORE than half the year.
Similarly, for her situation.

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"cb162" <chrisb[at]planningsolutioninc.com> wrote:

- quote -

What you're missing is that if it's exactly 50/50, neither
of you qualfies as HofH since nobody had them more than half
the year. Yes, it can come down to hours. Assuming the
children traveled as a pair, for 2005 you need to figure out
which of you had them more than half the time. (The
dependency exemption is irrelevant to this discussion.)
Details are in Publication 501.

Going forward you are free to set things up as you like, and
you could arrange it so each of you has one child more than
50% of the time. Just make sure to keep good records,
because I suspect this is one that could raise the IRS's
interest.

--
Phil Marti
Clarksburg, MD

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cb162 wrote:

- quote -

To qualify as head of household a qualifying person must
live in the taxpayer's home MORE than half the year. If the
kids were always together, then only one of you (you and
your ex, that is) can qualify for head of household status.

Good luck,
Bill

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cb162 wrote:

- quote -

Yes you are missing something. If you want to file as HOH,
make sure that at least one child resides with each of you
for MORE than half (> 50%) the year. Basically, you want one
child for 183 days and she wants one child for 183 days
(please no comments about leap years). There is no
requirement that your qualifying child be your dependent
unless that child is married.

Also note that there has been a 2005 change in the
definition of who is the custodial parent. The custodial
parent is the person who has custody for the greater part of
the year. A divorce decree granting custody to one parent no
longer trumps the physical custody rule. The noncustodial
parent can only claim an exemption if the custodial parent
releases it or the divorce decree unconditionally grants the
exemption to the noncustodial parent and the language in the
decree conforms to IRS requirements (see Form 8332) and the
document is signed by the custodial parent. This is another
reason that each of you wants to have custody of at least
one child for MORE than half the year.

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Here is the situation. My ex-wife and I have 2 children and
we each claim one of them as a dependant. We each have our
own house and both kids live with her 1/2 the time and with
me half the time. From my research it would seem that we
could both file as Head of Household seeing that we each pay
for a house 100% of the time that the kids live in 50% of
the time and we each clain on child as a dependant. Is this
possible with the current IRS rules or am I missing
something?

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