How to Stop a Stepparent from Communicating on Behalf of My Ex-

Out of curiosity, what type of proof do you have about the taxes? Why didn't you file with the other child like the court order said to do?

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Quoting Bio-mom

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Father claimed all the kids and interest on home, when the court order stated he was to claim one child and I was to claim the other and interest on home.

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Ok, as to claiming the dependent exemption for the children, the kids live with you more than half the year, right? If that’s right, then that makes you the custodial parent (CP) for federal tax purposes and your ex the noncustodial parent (NCP). In that case, under the federal tax rules, you as the CP are the one entitled to claim the dependent exemption for the kids unless you sign a waiver allowing the ex to claim one or both kids. Form 8332 may be used for the waiver. The NCP must attach that waiver to his return. See IRS Publication 501 which explains how this works in detail. Given your court order, then, you’d be obligated to give him the waiver for the one kid and you’d claim the other one yourself.

You don’t need to worry about what he claimed. You put on your return what you are entitled to claim and when the IRS matches up his return with yours the IRS will sort out then which parent is entitled to the exemption. If you file your return electronically and find the return is rejected because he claimed the kid already then all you have to do is file the return by paper instead and the IRS will process it and give you the exemption. In short, if you just file the return the way you should the IRS will catch this issue without you having to do anything more and, importantly, you get the benefit of the exemptions to which you are entitled. No need to go to court over that. As the CP, you are in control of the exemptions here.

The court cannot allocate the interest on the home. Under the federal tax law, the home mortgage interest deduction goes the person who actually paid the interest. A court cannot override the federal tax law on that. Again, you may deduct on your return the actual mortgage interest and real estate taxes that you paid to get the deduction you are entitled to claim. But if you didn’t actually pay those expenses you don’t get to deduct them except in one situation: if your divorce decree requires that he pay the mortgage payment on the home and he makes those payments. In that case, his payment of your share of the mortgage would be taxable alimony to you, but then you could deduct the portion of mortgage interest that was paid on your share of the home. You won’t get to deduct the portion of interest on his share of the home in any case.

In any event, I don’t see any actual tax fraud going on here by your ex. At least not something significant enough that the IRS would criminally prosecute him for it. But once the IRS catches up with the excess deductions he took, he’ll owe the extra tax, interest, and perhaps a penalty.

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Quoting Bio-mom

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Father claimed all the kids and interest on home, when the court order stated he was to claim one child and I was to claim the other and interest on home. Home expenses are to be halved as long as he keeps his name and debt attached to the house. He does not pay his half or reimburse me. Child support is to be paid on a certain date each month. It is withheld or not paid.

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As far as taxes are concerned, you can go ahead and claim the child that you are supposed to claim, and claim the interest on your home, but you will have to file your returns the old fashioned way, via paper. You will receive your refund and the IRS will later investigate the duplicate claim. Since dad will not be able to prove that the children primarily live with him, then he will end up having to pay back any excess refund. After that happens to him a couple of times, he will likely stop claiming things that he is not supposed to claim.

You can amend any returns for 2012, 2013 and 2014 to claim the child that you should have claimed and the mortgage interest that you should have claimed.

I did claim the children (1 from a previous M and 1 that I was allowed to claim from this M) He did his taxes before I did mine and I spent a substantial amount with an attorney fighting the IRS. IRS said I did not prove that the kids lived with me through-out the tax year (which they have always lived with me), and because the mortgage is in both names he was able to claim it on his taxes. He also used my address for years. He won. I lost. I ended up paying $16, 000.00 in interest, taxes, attorney fees, and penalties. Ex called it my "bad karma".