Tax Exemption

Iowa--Since my child's dad and I were never married and he isn't even paying his court ordered childsupport, can he claim the child as his exemption on his Tax Return even if I don't have to file?
Thank-you for your time.

The general rule is that he must provide more than half of the child’s total support during the calendar year to get the exemption. He figures whether he has provided more than half by comparing the amount he contributed to the person's support with the entire amount of support the person received from all sources. Since he did not provide more than half the support, he would not qualify for the exemption under the general rule.

Sometimes no one provides more than half of the support of a person. Instead, two or more persons, each of whom would be able to take the exemption but for the support test, together provide more than half of the person's support.
If this is the case, you can agree that any one of you who individually provides more than 10% of the person's support gets the exemption. So if he provided more than 10% of the support, you could agree to let him take the exemption, but he would be able to take it only if you did agree.