Is it illegal for parents to claim a child on their tax return?

let me explain the question before you answer it. Im 20 years old. in 2007, I worked three jobs and went to school full time while living at home. I have worked since i was 15 but my parents always told me not to file because i didnt make enough anyway. they are my parents so i listened to them. But now i am older and i am also moving into my own apartment within the next two weeks. my income for 2007 was about 25,000(all were part-time). So of course i want to file taxes and get a great return like every other normal person. But wait one second. My mom(my dad didnt care) said there is no way im gonna do that because THEY r gonna tclaim me no matter what to get more money. If I don't listen to my mom she threatened to NOT provide their tax information to the college i attend, which means i can't get financial aid help (becuase you have to be at least 24). Is this illegal becuase they are claiming me as a dependent even when i dont want them to. please help.

Not to sound harsh, but what you want them to do about claiming you has nothing to do with the law - if they are legally allowed to claim you, then they not only can, but even if they backed down and didn't, you still couldn't legally claim yourself.

That said, they might or might not be legally allowed to claim you. There are a number of tests - they pass most of them, your age and student status, and your residence. The one they might or might not pass is support, so that's where the decision will come in. It will depend on how much your total support is, and how much of it you paid from your own earnings - if you saved a lot of it for future school or other costs, for example, that part of what you made would not be considered support you paid. There's a chart in a couple of IRS publications to figure support - chapter 3, Publication 17 is one place you can find it. Fill that out. You will notice that your proportional share of the household expenses is part of your support, probably paid by them unless you are paying them money to live at home. That is probably a pretty big share of your total support.

You'd probably save around $510 in tax if you claim yourself. But if they can legally claim you, then you aren't allowed to claim yourself whether they do or not.

Let me start by saying that you need to talk to a tax consultant or the IRS. However, what they are doing is illegal, as you are of age, and not considered to be their dependent. Unless they've provided a major portion of your support over the past year. The part about withholding tax information is extortion, and should you want to, you could bring them into court, and have a judge order them to provide the information. This is pretty drastic.

Whether they can claim you as a dependent depends upon whether you provided more than half of your OWN support from your own resources.

With $25,000 in income yourself it would appear on the surface that MAYBE you paid more than half of your own support but that is NOT a guarantee! What you spent that money on is CRITICAL to making the determination. If you paid college tuition with it, that would count as self support and may well bar them from claiming you. However if you're going to an expensive Ivy League college it's entirely possible that that would not be enough to meet the self support test.

On the other hand if you simply saved it or partied it away that does NOT count as self support and your parents would still be able to claim you as a dependent.

There's a worksheet in IRS Pub 501 that will help you and your folks determine if you are still a dependent or not. Use that worksheet. If you did not provide more than half of your own support, you're a dependent and you cannot claim your personal exemption. If you did provide more than half of your own support then you're not a dependent and your parents cannot claim you as such and you can claim your personal exemption.

Neither you nor your parents get to call this one. Only the facts at hand make the call and you are all legally bound by those facts.

Go to an IRS VITA site and discuss this with somebody on a face to face basis. This is one of those cases where each answer spawns two more questions. Right now I can give you three possible answers; Yes, No and Maybe; all depending on the previous answer.

The answers given by Boston and Judy above are correct. What you have to do is determine who can claim you as a dependent under the IRS rules for doing so. People cannot merely decide among themselves (except under very limited circumstances) who will claim a dependency exemption.

The steps are that first you must look at the rules for being a qualifying child (QC) of your parents. If you meet those rules, you cannot claim yourself. If you do not meet the QC rules, you must then look to see if you meet the definition of a qualifying relative (QR) for your parents. Again, if you meet those rules you cannot claim yourself. If you don't meet either the QC or QR tests, your parents cannot claim you.

Based on your message, you might be a QC for your parents. As mentioned above, you seem to meet all the requirements to be a QC, with the possible exception of the support test. Take the advice given by Boston & Judy and go down the support test rules with your parents. The results of that test will decide, in your case who can claim you.

As an extra note, you earned too much in 2007 to be a QR. The matter will turn on the QC tests.

DO YOU THINK GETTING THEM IN TROUBLE WILL HELP YOU IN ANY WAY??
Do you think they will help you at all.ever if you get them in trouble.............
try growing up...............

It's not illegal for them to claim you as a dependent, especially since you lived with them for the entire year of 2007 (that's how the IRS determines if a person is a dependent or not). You can, however, file your own income taxes and should since you earned more than $8450 last year.

If you are paying your own tuition and books, you should be able to take that deduction on your own return. I suggest that you get TurboTax and let the program walk you through your return. Or, you could try filling out the 1040EZ on your own (it's really simple). Good luck to you! Next year, you'll be able to claim yourself on your income taxes.