What is the Meaning of Claiming Dependents on Taxes?
Claiming dependents on taxes refers to a tax deduction for the personal exemption amount for an individual taxpayer, his or her spouse, tax payer’s child or any other dependent. This is done for calculating a US tax payer’s federal income tax provided in the Internal Revenue Code. So in short, personal exemption can be claimed by people themselves and the qualified dependents. This benefit can be enjoyed by the spouse as well in a couple of cases. Simply put, for instance, if I want to be exempted from taxes or at least get some breaks from that, I can claim my parents or children or relatives as dependents and qualify for tax breaks or tax deduction and few other benefits. Pre Requisites for Claiming Parents as Dependents on Taxes Criteria 1 The individual you are claiming as a dependent has to be related to you. Now when you are going to claim a parent as dependent, this is not an issue. In this too, in laws are allowed, but foster parents are not unless they live with you for a year