Should Child Support Paying Parents Get A Tax Break?

Personal opinion - The person who pays more than 50% of the support should always get the tax exemption. The rules - If it is stated in your divorce decree that you can claim the child, you DO NOT have to get the custodial parent to sign Form 8332. Copies of the pertinent pages of the decree is all you need to attach to your tax return. For more details, see IRS Publication 501 and the section entitled "Divorce decree or separation agreement after 1984". Here you will find the instructions on what you need to do. If the decree does not state you can claim the child, then you can go back court and request the tax exemption or you can have the custodial parent sign Form 8332.

While it would be nice, I think most divorce settlements sometimes cover this issue by declaring who can claim the child on taxes, and if you work it out in the divorce agreement then it's handled that way. I've heard of father's alternating years for tax credits with their ex-spouse.

I don't think child support paying parents should get an additional tax break, but you could talk to your ex, and get her to sign IRS Form 8332, which is a release so you can claim the children, or maybe just one of them. The reason I don't think paying child support should qualify for a tax break is if you were totally supporting them, it would probably cost even more and you would still be taxed on the money you used to support them. The bad thing about not getting a tax break would be the amount of money used for child support. That amount of money could cause you to be taxed at a higher rate, or prevent you from getting tax credits in other areas. There is a lot of parents paying child support, and collectively it adds up to quite a bit. I could not imagine the IRS not wanting to collect taxes on that amount of money. Its not like alimony, which is deductible to the payer. If you paid your ex alimony, she would have to pay taxes on it. If the IRS gave parents tax breaks or credits for child support payers, they would probably go after the taxes from the receiver, like they do with alimony, and that would not be fair to the person caring for the child.

OK...tax breaks maybe not but it REALLY irks me that the IRS automatically gives the dependent deduction to the custodial parent. That makes NO SENSE!!!! Even if you put in a divorce settlement that each parent will alternate th deduction or each deduct one child, it will not hold up in an audit because you need to have the custodial parent sign away the right to the deduction every year on a specific IRSform. And well.. unless you have a ridiculously pleasant ex--good luck making that happen. My husband's ex does not work. So, she pays NOTHING into the system. Why? Because she is married to a millionaire. So, not only does she get child support tax free--she gets the tax benefits of the children. Or, should I say her new husband gets the tax benefit by virtue of a joint tax return. Now if we went to court, we probably could get the court to award the deduction for one child but they would raise the amount of my husband's income to compensate. Then, because the IRS has nothing to do with Family Court, it would all be for nothing anyway if the IRS flagged i. Nice system!!! And we pay 65% of support too. We're screwed all by IRS rules.