Claimed child on both mine and wifes taxes while filing MFS, one of them got rejected.

Question

Claimed child on both mine and wifes taxes while filing MFS, I filed hers first and that got accepted by the IRS, I filed mine a few hours later and mine got rejected because he cant be claimed on both. I amended hers and removed him from her taxes and immediately after went in resubmitted mine with my child as a dependent. I got another message saying rejected due to dependents social security number already used. I am wondering why that is? Was there not enough of a time game for the system to register that my son is not listed as a dependent on my wifes taxes?

MatthewD · Answer

Hi h8taxes,

You will need to mail in your return in cases like this. Even after the other person amend their return, that does not change data in the irs e-file system. So the IRS needs a mailed paper return from you.

h8taxes · Answer

I filled the amendment for my wife through freetaxUSA. That amendment of removing my son as a dependent was accepted. But when I refile mine I keep getting rejected with the message saying the dependents social is listed on another tax return.

toyotadriver · Answer

Did you file the amendment through FreeTaxUSA, or directly to the IRS? This might be a case where you have to mail in the form and manually make changes, I don't know how often their systems would 'check' related accounts to see what has been removed.