*Loan,banking and credit>>>child tax

Can I claim a step-child on my taxes??

My husband and his ex wife have joint custody. She gets to claim one of the kids on her taxes and he gets to claim the other on his. He has back child support to pay on another child from a previous relationship, so when he files taxes, he never gets his refund back. I file my taxes separately and would like to know if I would be able to claim the child on my taxes instead of letting him since he won't get his taxes back anyways....

You may be able to if you meet the following:

In general, to be a taxpayer鈥檚 qualifying child, a person must satisfy four tests:

Relationship 鈥?the taxpayer鈥檚 child or stepchild (whether by blood or adoption), foster child, sibling or step-sibling, or a descendant of one of these.
Residence 鈥?has the same principal residence as the taxpayer for more than half the tax year. Exceptions apply, in certain cases, for children of divorced or separated parents, kidnapped children, temporary absences, and for children who were born or died during the year.
Age 鈥?must be under the age of 19 at the end of the tax year, or under the age of 24 if a full-time student for at least five months of the year, or be permanently and totally disabled at any time during the year.
Support 鈥?did not provide more than one-half of his/her own support for the year.

Also, here's a little tidbit not many people may be aware - if you file jointly and the refund is taken (as you have described), then you can file an "injured spouse claim" to receive the portion of refund that would be applicable to you as "married filing jointly." Ask your tax preparer, or check out the link to Form 8379. Source(s): www.irs.gov

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8379.pdf...

Since the child in question is not yours.............
Nope
Yes, depending on how much support you provide.

Here's some info:

http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq-kw115.html...
Why doesn't your dead beat man just pay his child support. Then you wouldn't have this problem. What a jerk.
Normally step children are treated in the same manner as natural children. In this case the court order may prevent that. If the child that you wish to claim is not the child of the person to whom your husband owes back child support you may be able to claim that child if there is not anything the court order that would prevent doing so and the child lived with you for more than half of the year. There are other qualifications but if your husband meets those so do you.
If you (and you alone, not including your husband,) pay over 50% of the money needed to sustain the kid for the year AND there is no agreement specifically spelling out who can claim the child, then yes you can. This is incredibly unlikely.

That said, you are most likely filing your taxes as "Married, Filing Seperately" and, as a result, are paying WAY more taxes than you would by filing jointly with your husband. You're probably doing this to avoid having your refund go to pay for your husband's child support, but you're wasting a lot of money.

You have two options:

1) File jointly, and let the bigger refund go to pay the back child support. Suck it up for a few years to make it go away -- it will have to be paid eventually anyway

or

2) File jointly, and go to your employer to have your withholding changed so that you don't get a refund at the end of the year. You'll have more money in each check, and no refund to confiscate. Be careful, though, you don't want to underwithhold and owe too much in taxes. The penalty for that isn't worth whatever you'll save.