Who Claims Dependent
My daughter 19 lives at home. She was employed last year and will file her first return. Does she claim herself as dependent or do I continue to claim her as dependent?
Answers
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There is no provision for claiming oneself as a dependent. The question is — are you eligible to claim her? If so, she needs to indicate on her tax return that she can be claimed by another person. In order for you to determine if she qualifies as your dependent, please use the IRS Interactive Tax Assistant for "Whom May I Claim As a Dependent?"
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Where on FreeTax USA, can my child indicate they can be claimed as dependent by someone else? My kids filed, now my return is getting denied because I claim them as dependents (and they qualify), but IRS is rejecting because their SSNs show as filed independent.
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Hello again,
When they are filing their tax return, there are a bunch of questions on the TaxPayer Information Page. (Personal → Taxpayer Information). The first Yes or No question asks if someone can claim the taxpayer as a dependent. You will need to indicate that someone can.
It sounds like they may have missed this questions, so they will need to amend their tax returns in order to change this. However, amendments take up to 20 or more weeks to process, even if they are e-filed. So in order to file your tax return on time and claim your dependents, you will need to mail in your returns this year. You can do this by going to Final Steps → Filing Method. Otherwise, if you try to e-file and claim your dependents, your returns will continue to be rejected.
