If you were married, either of you can claim her. You'll have to agree. If you can't agree, the person who had her longer during 2002 gets to claim her. The person who had her longer also gets to claim her for EIC purposes. Also, the person who had her longer gets to claim head of household statuts. The other person is either single or needs a second child in the home to claim HH.
You might agree that the person who could actually claim the EIC (income under $29,000-ish) says she lived with him/her longer and claims HH & EIC, but the other one claims her as a dependent.
If you were never married, only the person who provided more support can claim her. Since neither paid CS to the other, this is going to boil down to who lives a higher lifestyle. I.e., who spent more money on a house/daycare/food/clothes/etc during the time she lived with them. This will likely be the person with the higher income. HH will go to the person with whom she lived 183 days or more.
In both cases, dependent care credits go only to the custodial parent. This is the parent with whom she lived for 183 days or more. The maximum amount of credit is based on expenses of $200/month/child. The only way you can both claim child care credit is if you both file a statement with your returns that custody changed during the year and that you have claimed only the expenses paid while she lived with you and have prorated the maximum credit based on the number of months she lived with you. You should also list the other custodial parent/s name & SSN.
Ex: M has D from 5-1 - 10/31. M pays $3000 for day care. M claims care credit based on 6 months custody: $1200 worth of expenses. The form makes it look like M can claim the credit based on $2400 of expenses, but M has to prorate the maximum amount by hand.
Clear as mud?
