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Claiming Dependents and Health Insurance – Tax Questions?
My g/f moved into my fathers household with us last march/april when we found out she was pregnant. She kept her parents insurance through the pregnancy since we didn’t get married. My dad wants to claim her as his dependent for last year, since she was a full time student for both semesters last year, which he has the right to do. But my g/f has a concern with her insurance thinking that her parents could get in trouble due to insurance fraud if someone else claims her other than them. Is this a misplaced fear or could it have bad consequences. She says her parents claim that they signed a paper for the insurance that she was living under their roof or something to the effect, which seems fishy to me. They have BlueCross/BlueShield if that will help you guys any. Any info would be appreciated.
How old is your g/f? Depending on her age and the fact that she is in school, her parents are (most likely) entitled to the deduction. Parental status trumps any other individual’s “right” to claim her as a dependent (other than that of a husband who provided over 50% of her support).
In order for your g/f to be claimed as a dependent of your father, she would have had to live with him for the ENTIRE year. She does not qualify as either a “qualified child” or “qualified relative” of your dad.
see page 20
For your dad to claim your g/f, you would have to be married to her. Otherwise, there is no family relationship and he cannot claim her.
Insurance companies don’t have access to tax returns. So, I wouldn’t worry about that.
Actually, it doesn’t sound like ANY of the parents can claim her as a dependent. Since she didn’t live with her parents for over half of the year, she’s not their qualifying child – and if they falsely signed insurance papers saying she lived with them when she didn’t, yes, they could get in trouble – the most likely result being that claims would be disallowed. The company could charge them with insurance fraud, but probably wouldn’t.
As for your dad, he can’t claim her either – since she is not related to him, he could only claim her if she lived with him ALL year, and if she moved in in March or April, that’s not all year. So even if he paid more than half of her support, then he can NOT claim her. Being a student or not doesn’t matter, since your dad is NOT related to her. Providing over half of her support for the year doesn’t matter either.