You are receiving this handout because you qualified for one or more of the following tax benefits: Head of Household filing status, Child Tax Credit, Advanced Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, and or the American Opportunity Credit. We have outlined for you a list of documents and information you may need to keep with your tax records or be able to produce as proof of your tax benefit eligibility in the event of an IRS audit.

Filing Status

1. Valid Social Security Cards for you, your spouse, and or your dependents.

2. Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates, and/or Death Certificates to prove your filing status or to prove your relationship to your dependents.

3. Divorce Decree, Separation Agreement, or Decree of Maintenance to support your filing status.

4. If you lived apart from your spouse – Lease Agreement, Utility Bills, a Statement from Social Services, a Statement from a Clergy member, or other documentation to show that you lived apart for the last 6 months of the year

5. For Head of Household Status - Household bills such as utilities, property tax, mortgage statements, rental agreements, or other household bills to show you maintained more than half the cost of keeping up the home for the entire year

Eligibility to Claim Dependents

1. Current custody order

2. Parenting plan,

3. A signed copy of ​Form 8332, release of Claim to Exemption for Child of Divorced or Separated Parents ​ to prove your ability to claim your dependents.

4. A signed copy of ​Form 8332, release of Claim to Exemption for Child of Divorced or Separated Parents ​ to prove you revoked the noncustodial parent’s ability to claim your dependents.

5. School records, medical records, social service records, daycare records, or a letter (from the school, social service agency, healthcare provider, your landlord, a tribal official, a shelter, or a place of worship) to prove that the child lived with you. Letters must be on official letterhead and must specify the child’s name, the parent or guardian’s name, the child’s address, and the dates during the year that the child lived at the address.

6. Placement documents from an adoption agency, foster care agency, or the courts showing the child was placed in your home for foster care or adoption.

7. A letter from a physician or healthcare provider stating the permanent and total disability of your dependent.

8. Proof that you provided more than half of the child’s support: household bills, statement from child support agency, statement of government benefits you received, rental agreements, daycare receipts, medical payments

9. For dependents age 18 through 23 – school records showing that they were considered a full time student for 5 months of the tax year. Records must show the child’s name and specific dates attended.

Eligibility for Education Credits

1. Form 1098-T

2. Statement of amounts paid to school

3. Receipts and check duplicates showing amounts paid for tuition, fees, books, and supplies

4. Course syllabus

5. Course Transcripts

6. Documentation of any Employer provided education assistance

7. Proof of withdrawals from educational savings accounts

8. Proof of educational assistance received from veteran’s benefits

9. Proof of any other nontaxable educational assistance received

Self-Employed Persons Records of your Income and Expenses including but not limited to:

1. Bank Statements and Business Credit Card Statements

2. Invoices

3. Receipts

4. Mileage Logs

5. Vehicle Maintenance Receipts

6. Canceled Checks

7. Business Loan Agreements

8. Business Ledgers

9. Business License

10. Excise and/or Employment Tax Returns if Applicable

Note: If you are audited, you may be asked to substantiate the amount of the credit that you qualified for. If this happens, please contact us and we will provide you with a copy of all of our computations.

Sometimes a child meets the tests to be a qualifying child of more than one person. However, only one of these persons can actually treat the child as a qualifying child. ​Only that person​ can use the child as a qualifying child ​to take all of the following tax benefits​ (provided the person is eligible for each benefit).

1. The exemption for the child.

2. The child tax credit.

3. Head of household filing status.

4. The credit for child and dependent care expenses.

5. The exclusion for dependent care benefits.

6. The EIC.

The other person cannot take any of these benefits based on this qualifying child. In other words, you and the other person cannot agree to divide these tax benefits between you. The other person cannot take any of these tax benefits unless he or she has a different qualifying child. The tiebreaker rules, which follow, explain who, if anyone, can claim the EIC when more than one person has the same qualifying child. However, the tiebreaker rules don't apply if the other person is your spouse and you file a joint return.

Tiebreaker rules

To determine which person can treat the child as a qualifying child to claim the six tax benefits just listed, the following tiebreaker rules apply.

If only one of the persons is the child's parent, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the parent.

If the parents file a joint return together and can claim the child as a qualifying child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the parents.

If the parents don't file a joint return together but both parents claim the child as a qualifying child, the IRS will treat the child as the qualifying child of the parent with whom the child lived for the longer period of time during the year. If the child lived with each parent for the same amount of time, the IRS will treat the child as the qualifying child of the parent who had the higher adjusted gross income (AGI) for the year.

If no parent can claim the child as a qualifying child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year.

If a parent can claim the child as a qualifying child but no parent does so claim the child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year, but only if that person's AGI is higher than the highest AGI of any of the child's parents who can claim the child. If the child's parents file a joint return with each other, this rule can be applied by treating the parents' total AGI as divided evenly between them.

Subject to these tiebreaker rules, you and the other person may be able to choose which of you claims the child as a qualifying child.

If you cannot claim the EIC because your qualifying child is treated under the tiebreaker rules as the qualifying child of another person for the tax year, you may be able to take the EIC using a different qualifying child, but you cannot take the EIC using the rules in chapter 3 for people who don't have a qualifying child.

If you and someone else have the same qualifying child but the other person cannot claim the EIC because he or she isn't eligible or his or her earned income or AGI is too high, you may be able to treat the child as a qualifying child. But you cannot treat the child as a qualifying child to claim the EIC if the other person uses the child to claim any of the other six tax benefits listed earlier in this chapter.

For detailed examples, See Rule 9 – Your Qualifying Child Cannot Be Used by More Than One Person To Claim the EIC in Pub. 501

There are special rules for divorced or separated parents or parents who live apart. A child will be treated as the qualifying child of his or her noncustodial parent (for purposes of claiming an exemption and the child tax credit, but not for the EIC) if all of the following statements are true.

1. The parents:

a.) Are divorced or legally separated under a decree of divorce or separate maintenance,

b.) Are separated under a written separation agreement, or

c.) Lived apart at all times during the last 6 months of the tax year, whether or not they are or were married.

2. The child received over half of his or her support for the year from the parents.

3. The child is in the custody of one or both parents for more than half of the tax year.

4. Either of the following statements is true.

a.) The custodial parent signs Form 8332 or a substantially similar statement that he or she will not claim the child as a dependent for the year, and the noncustodial parent attaches the form or statement to his or her return. If the divorce decree or separation agreement went into effect after 1984 and before 2009, the noncustodial parent may be able to attach certain pages from the decree or agreement instead of Form 8332.

b.) A pre-1985 decree of divorce or separate maintenance, or written separation agreement that applies to the tax year, provides that the noncustodial parent can claim the child as a dependent, and the noncustodial parent provides at least $600 for support of the child during the tax year.

If a child is treated as the qualifying child of the noncustodial parent under this special rule for children of divorced or separated parents (or parents who live apart), only the noncustodial parent can claim an exemption and the child tax credit for the child. However, only the custodial parent if eligible, or another eligible taxpayer can claim the child as a qualifying child for the EIC and the Dependent Care Credit. For details and examples, see Applying the tiebreaker rules to divorced or separated parents (or parents who live apart) in Pub. 501.