Earned Income Credit-father threatening to 'report' me to IRS and have me jailed!?
Question:
My daughter/'sister' and I lived at home with my parents from 1995-2006. I have ALWAYS worked. I claimed head of household and received the EIC from 1996-2006. My father never had a problem with this before. But now that he and my mother are splitting up and I have been helping her get her life together, he has threatened that he will report me to the IRS and I 'will owe tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS'. I guess he is doing this to hurt me or to make me back off helping my mom get away from him...
Do I have anything to worry about? Please help me. My mom is Asian and he makes threats all the time and we never know what to believe...
Answer:
You may not have any problems...there is not enough info to determine for sure whether you qualify as HOH.
Did your parents work while you lived with them? How much did you earn compared to them? Did they pay the mortgage/rent or did you? Who paid the child's medical bills? Did they claim you on their tax return?
If you paid more than 50% of the support for the child and can show that you did you shouldn't have a problem with receiving the EITC. Email me if you want and answer the questions and I can give you a more definitive answer.
Um your daughter lived with you and you provided money for her care, it doesn't matter who had legal custody. Break out your 1040 instructions honey you had the right to the earned income credit.
You've got a problem kid. You were NOT a head of household and you probably were not entitled to the EITC, though you didn'tn present enough facts for me to make that determination. You need to shut up and hope the statute of limitations runs before you get caught.
I will say this, to the extent that your dad encouraged you, he is complicit, of course, that probably can't be proven!
By the way, just because you made certain contributions to the raisign of the child does not mean you get the EITC, you have to be the primary means of support for the kid. Were you? Either way, you were NOT the head of household if the parents were putting a roof over your head.
head of household and elibility for the earned income credit are both defined by law, not by people on this site who think of what those things ought to mean. Get out the instruction book from last years tax return and see if you qualify. if you do, great. if not, your father is unlikely to actually report you and if he does, the IRS is unlikely to follow up on it.
Yes, there could be a problem if your Dad pursued the issue because if your parents legally adopted the child, you would not have legal status to declare her as dependent, therefore, could not legally file as head of household.
Sounds like you won't have a tax problem, as your modified answer contains information confirming that you qualify as HOH and for the EIC.
But with your vindictive dad also being the legal parent of your daughter, he's got a lot of ammo to screw with you. I hope this works out for you and your mom.
Does your dad know that failure to report a crime is a crime itself?
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