ilokguardian
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? IL
I have read what the IRS says here:
A ?Qualifying Child?
but I still have a few questions.
My husband & I are legal guardians (through the courts) of my step-sister's son. He is disabled and receives an SSI check. I have questions about two of the tests for qualifying child.
(1) Relationship. According to the document above he must be "the taxpayer’s child or stepchild (whether by blood or adoption), foster child, sibling or stepsibling, or a descendant of one of these." Since he is none of the others, does he count as a foster child, even though he did not come to us through the foster care system?
(2) Support. The test is that he "did not provide more than one-half of his/her own support for the year." I haven't sat down and totaled all of his expenses for the past year. I know those expenses are more than he receives from Social Security, but do I need to be able to show that his expenses are more than double his SSI check? When keeping records we just tracked his medical expenses because those are easily more than his SSI and they are easily tracked. But we also provided all his other support. Will I need to have that documented (receipts for clothes, school costs, haircuts, etc)?
Thanks for any help!
I have read what the IRS says here:
A ?Qualifying Child?
but I still have a few questions.
My husband & I are legal guardians (through the courts) of my step-sister's son. He is disabled and receives an SSI check. I have questions about two of the tests for qualifying child.
(1) Relationship. According to the document above he must be "the taxpayer’s child or stepchild (whether by blood or adoption), foster child, sibling or stepsibling, or a descendant of one of these." Since he is none of the others, does he count as a foster child, even though he did not come to us through the foster care system?
(2) Support. The test is that he "did not provide more than one-half of his/her own support for the year." I haven't sat down and totaled all of his expenses for the past year. I know those expenses are more than he receives from Social Security, but do I need to be able to show that his expenses are more than double his SSI check? When keeping records we just tracked his medical expenses because those are easily more than his SSI and they are easily tracked. But we also provided all his other support. Will I need to have that documented (receipts for clothes, school costs, haircuts, etc)?
Thanks for any help!