 Income tax 2022-2023. Credits for qualifying children and other dependents. Dependent questionnaire. Let's do some wealth preservation with some tax preparation. We're looking now at the Form 1040 Instructions Tax Year 2022. You can find on the IRS website, irs.gov, irs.gov, specifically at Dependents Qualifying Child for Child Tax Credit and Credit for Other Dependents because, of course, the child tax credit and the other dependent credit is wound up intimately with whether or not someone qualifies as a dependent. So the general thought process would be then, does someone qualify as a dependent? If they do, what are the tax benefits if they do? Well, if they qualify for the child tax credit, that would be the biggest benefit, typically. And if I can't get that for the dependent, then possibly we can get the support accounting instruction by clicking the link below, giving you a free month membership to all of the content on our website, broken out by category, further broken out by course. Each course then organized in a logical, reasonable fashion, making it much more easy to find what you need than can be done on a YouTube page. We also include added resources such as Excel practice problems, PDF files and more like QuickBooks backup files when applicable. So once again, click the link below for a free month membership to our website and all the content on it. Other dependent question. So let's go to the question here, which goes through this in a little bit more detail, a little bit more formally, and then if you see a gray area somewhere in between, you can drill down with more research, possibly starting at the instructions here on the Form 1040. Okay, step one, so do you have a qualifying child? So this doesn't necessarily mean for the qualifying for the child tax credit. It means a qualifying child to be a dependent and we want to keep those things straight or separate in our mind, especially when we get down to things like these age requirements. Okay, so first, a qualifying child is a child who is son, daughter, step child, foster child, brother, sister, step brother, step sister, half brother, half sister, or decedent of any of them. For example, your grandchild, niece or nephew and was under age 19 at the end of 2022 and younger than you or your spouse if filing jointly. Normally that second bit not usually important unless you have a weird situation, but you can imagine weird situation. So the age limit 19 or under age 24 at the end of 2022, a student to find later and younger than you or your spouse if filing jointly. So now we've got the age limits under 19 or under 24 at the end of 2022, a student. So then you have to be thinking about what qualifies as a student and you could dive into that in more detail in terms of what would qualify for a student for that age limit of 24 or any age and permanently and totally disabled. So permanently and totally disabled the exception to the general rules up top, which are under 19 under 24 and then son, daughter, step child and so on and so forth and who didn't provide over half their own support for 2022. So they didn't provide over half their own support for 2022 and who isn't filing a joint return. If they were filing a joint return, you would think they would not be a dependent because they would be filing married filing joint for 2022 or filing a joint return for 2022 only to claim a refund of withheld income tax or estimated tax paid. So there could be an exception to that rule possibly if you had like a young couple or something like that. But general rule not filing not married because then they wouldn't be a dependent because they'd be filing a married filing joint and who lived with you for more than half of 2022. If the child didn't live with you for the required time, see exceptions to live with you. So now we've got they lived with you for half of 2022. That gets into questions in terms of what does it mean to live with me? What if they're they had to go to the hospital or something like that medical conditions? Does that count for living with me? And so on. If you want to dive into some more details on those questions, you could see the exception to time lived with you. So if the child meets the condition to be a qualifying child of any other person other than your spouse, if filing jointly for 2022, see qualifying child for more than one person later. That's another area that gets into this muddy situation of well, what if you have a joint custody type of situation and you think two spouses qualify well, you can't have that same individual child being a tax benefit on two tax returns. You can't use the same social security number, for example, on two tax returns. So you've got it. You've got to purse purse that out. Number one, do you have a child who meets the condition to be your qualifying child? If yes, you go to step two. If no, go to step four. So if we go to step two, is your qualifying child your dependent? If you go to step four, then we're talking about someone who isn't a qualifying child, possibly to see if they would qualify for the other dependent credit because they're not a qualifying child. So we're going to go to step two here. Is your qualifying child your dependent? One, was the child a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, U.S. resident alien, or a resident of Canada or Mexico? If you want more detail on that, you can see publication 519 for more information. If the answer is yes, we continue on. If no, you can't claim this child as a dependent. Was the child married? If yes, we continue on. If no, then I'm sorry, was the child married? If yes, see married person. If no, we continue on because if they're married, generally then they wouldn't be a dependent. So could you or your spouse of filing jointly be claimed as a dependent on someone else's 2022 return? If the person who could claim you on their 2022 return is not required to file and isn't filing a 2022 tax return, or is filing a 2020 return only to be claimed a refund with held income tax or estimated tax paid, check no, see step one, two and four. So could you be claimed on someone else's return? Typically you would think the answer would be no because you would have a dependent that is dependent upon you. If you were dependent on someone else, then that would be kind of unusual. That means someone else would be paying half of your support and you're paying half of it. So if yes, you can't claim any dependents, complete the rest of the form, no, you can claim this child as a dependent, complete columns one through three of the dependent section on page one to form 1040 or 1040 SR for this child, then go to step three. Okay, step number three, does your qualifying child qualify you for the child tax credit or credit for other dependents? Now note this is a little confusing on the language because then you said first we said are they a qualifying child, which sounds like you might like well does that mean they're qualifying for the child tax credit? No, it means that they're qualifying child qualifying as a qualifying child for the dependent as a dependent. But now they're a qualifying child and the question is do they now allow you to qualify for the child tax credit, which has some added rules here on step three, which would be the biggest benefit typically for the dependent. So this is the best one we would want if they don't qualify for that, then we may still be able to get the other dependent credit, which we might be able to get on a qualifying child, which doesn't qualify for the child tax credit or someone who isn't possibly a qualifying child, but still qualifies as a dependent. Okay, so did the child have an SSN social security number or ITIN or adoption taxpayer identification number and ATIN issued on or before the due date of your return, including extensions? Answer yes if you are applying for an ITIN or ATIN for the child on or before the due date of your return. If yes, we continue. If no, you can't claim the child tax credit or the credit for other dependents. Number two, was the child a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, U.S. resident, alien to see publication 519 for more details. If yes, we continue. If no, you can't claim the child tax credit or the credit for other dependents. Number three, was the child under age 17. So now we have another another age. So this is getting kind of confusing, right, because we said the qualifying child was like 19 or 24 if they were a student. But now we have the 17, which is the one. So if they're a qualifying child, doesn't necessarily this age limit isn't 19 or 24. That's to qualify as a dependent as a qualifying child. But now we're seeing if they qualify their qualifying child and would qualify for the child tax credit. And there you have the age limit of 17 at the end. So was the child under age 17 at the end of 2022? If yes, continue, if no, you can claim the credit for other dependents for this child, meaning you don't get the child tax credit, but you get the default other dependent credit in that case. So if they were the qualifying child, but they were 18 or whatever to 24 qualifying student, then you don't get the bigger credit, even though they were a qualifying child, because they don't meet the age test, but you might still get the other dependent credit for them, or you should, you would think. So number four, did this child have an SSN number social security valid for employment issued before the due date of your 2022 return, including extensions? If yes, you can claim the child credit for this person. If no, you can claim the credit for other dependents for this child. Check the other dependent credit. All right. So that's going to be the questionnaire there. And then we skip on over to part four here, which you'll recall, if we didn't have the qualifying child, then the question was, okay, well, do could we still get an other dependent credit? So remember the thought process is, are they a dependent? Are they a qualifying child for the dependent, which is different to whether or not they qualify for the child tax credits. If they're qualifying child, then do they meet the more restrictive requirements, including the age test to be to get the better credit, the qualified, the child tax credit. And then if they're not a qualifying child, well, could they still qualify as an other dependent, which we're skipping down here to step number four. So is your qualifying relative your dependent? A qualifying relative is a person who is son, daughter, step child, foster child or descendant of any of them. For example, your grandchild or brother, sister, half brother, half sister, or a son or daughter of any of them. For example, your niece or nephew or father, mother or an ancestor or sibling of either of them. For example, your grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle or stepbrothers, step sisters, stepfathers, stepmothers, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, or any other person other than your spouse who lived with you all year as a member of your household if your relation didn't violate local law. So if the person didn't live with you for the required time, see exceptions. So we have a very expansive first basic test here, qualifying relative for the first test, quite expansive. But notice we have the living with you, any person who lived with you all year as a member of your household. And if there's exceptions to that, like they had medical conditions or something like that, you could see the exceptions to time lived with you to see if that would qualify as an essence time living with you. Okay, so and who wasn't a qualified child? So obviously they can't be a qualified child because now if they were a qualified child, then they wouldn't be here as an other dependent. They would be a qualified child and we'd be up there, we wouldn't be down here in step number four. So if any taxpayer year 2020, so for this person, a person isn't a taxpayer if the person isn't required to file a U.S. income tax return and either doesn't file such a return or files only to get a refund. Okay, and who had gross income less than 4,400. So there's the kicker. That's a pretty low threshold. Notice the prior one, I just want to point out again, wasn't a qualified child of any taxpayer, right? So usually you would think be thinking about yourself. Does this person qualify for you as a qualifying child or not? Okay, so in any case, here's the kicker who had gross income of less than 4,400 in 2022. That's pretty low threshold for the gross income. So if the person was permanently and totally disabled, you can see the exception to gross income test in that case and you can go into more detail there. And for whom you provided over half of the person's support in 2022, which seems kind of redundant because if they're your dependent and they made under 4,400 dollars, you would be providing more than half the support. But there's that one as well. But see children of divorced or separate parents, multiple support agreements and kidnap child later for more detail there. Okay, one, does any person meet the condition to be your qualifying relative? If yes, we continue. If no, we stop there. Two, was your qualifying relative a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, U.S. resident alien or resident of Canada or Mexico? See publication 519 for the definitions and so on. If yes, we continue. If no, you can't claim the person. Number three, was your qualifying relative married? If yes, seed married person later, you would think normally it would be no because it would be if they were filing married, they would be filing married joint return, which normally would mean they wouldn't be a dependent situation. So four, could you or your spouse of filing jointly be claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return? Now, normally, if you were a dependent of someone else, it would seem kind of odd that you have someone dependent on you because if you were dependent of someone else, they would be providing more than half your support generally. So if the person who could claim you on their 2022 tax return is not required to file and isn't filing a 2022 tax return or is filing a 2022 return only to claim a refund or withhold income tax or estimated tax pay check, you know, C steps one, two and four. So if yes, you can't claim any dependence. If no, you can claim this person as a dependent complete column one through three of the dependence section on page one of form 1040 or 1040 SR, Step five, does your qualifying relative qualify you for the credit for other dependent? So obviously you would hope that they would because that's the main benefit of having them as as the dependent number one. Did your qualifying relative have an SSN social security number I-10 or A-10 issued on or before the due date of your 2022 return, including extensions? Answer yes, if you are applying for an I-10 and so on. Same thing we've seen in prior iterations. So we're going to say yes. If yes, we continue. If no, you can't claim the credit. Number two, was your qualifying relative a U.S. citizen, U.S. national or U.S. resident alien? You can see publication 519 for more detail. If yes, you can claim the credit for other dependence. Woohoo for this dependent. I've checked the credit for other dependence box in column four of the dependence section page one of form 1040 1040 SR. If no, you can't claim the credit for other dependence. So there's the general concept. Now note that if you have any issues where they fall into that gray area, you've got a split custody situation or something like that. Or someone they lived with you, but some something happened so they weren't with you the whole time like they were having medical conditions or something like that. So the gray areas on any of these tests, you could start here to kind of dive down on more detailed, more detailed information from here. And you could find the instructions for the form 1040 in the IRS website iris.gov iris.gov.