Talking taxes: Who should you file a claim for?

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Tax expert Samantha Dent spoke to ABC 17 News on who exactly should file for a claim during tax season and when to do it.

What if someone's child splits time at one home and at their other parent's house? Can they claim them?

"Yeah, so there's something called a tiebreaker rule, which is, you know when people are sharing a dependent, let's say they spend, you know, just as much time at mom's house as a dad's house, then you kind of refer to, you know, who's actually making more money. So there's something called AGI, which is adjusted gross income, you know, which of the two parents provides more support or makes more income? There's, there are some rules, you know, like the relationship tests, the residency tests. So those kinds of things play a role in who claims"

How about high school students & college-age students that have started working. Can their parents still claim them? And does their income go on their parent's tax return?

Okay, so we get this question a lot, you know, but essentially, if you're still, you know if it's your child that 16, let's say, for example, and they're just working part-time, then you're still going to claim that child, as your dependent, you know, you've provided for their home the whole year, you've provided more than half of their support. And then they'll just file what's called a dependent return marking that someone else is claiming them as a dependent, and they would file to get back their withholding. So what I'm trying to say is they're not required to file but they can file if they have federal and state withholding, and get that withholding bag for a college child, you kind of decide, well, is this you know, is this person totally independent? Are they paying their rent? Are they paying for everything themselves? You know, then they might need to be claiming themselves, but college is an expensive thing. So there are a lot of instances actually where a college student can still be on their parent's return, even making a good amount of them. So we'll just look at all those factors when we're talking about claiming, you know, a child that's in college. 

Can you claim lets say your nephew who doesn’t work but is 25 years old and not a student?

Yes. So there's something called an other dependent credit that you can get on your tax return. So let's say you've got a family member or even a friend, for example, that's, you know, in their 20s 30s, and they're not working, they're not in school, they're just living on your couch and living in one of your rooms and you're providing all their support. There is a credit you can claim them as a dependent as long as they've earned under a certain threshold, which is about $4,000 you can actually claim someone who's you know that you're supporting whether or not they're related to or not, so that's called the other dependent credit, and it helps by $500