taxes

[arethinn]

My father is looking at possibly not working anymore after July, or at least by the end of the year. This is fine because he is 64 and would rather not have been working the past ten years, even, except for the buildup of retirement savings (which there isn't nearly enough of now that interest income has utterly taken a shit, but that's something else again).

As mine is the only other income in the household, and his interest income is only a fraction of my earned income, this presents us with an interesting possibility: for me to claim both my parents as dependents, since technically, I would be providing over half their support (the tax definition of "dependent"), and thus reduce my own taxes through the deductions you get for dependents.

While this sounds interesting, and certainly amusing, it also makes me fidgety. It's legal, but isn't this just the sort of tax dodge I shake my head and cluck at "the rich" for doing?

Comments

[shalora.livejournal.com]

I concur with [Unknown site tag]. It's not like you've gone digging through musty tomes of tax law trying to find some insignificant loopholes from which you can wrangle another few dollars. This is a legitimate break given for a legitimate need. If you are providing more than half of the support for another person as well as yourself, you must by default need to have more of your income than if you were the only person you were caring for. So take it. I have three words of advice: documentation, documentation, documentation! (yeah, not paranoid about audits or anything...)

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

See my comment (http://www.livejournal.com/users/tass/252877.html?thread=558541#t558541) to mal_akh. I'm not actually providing any support, it's just that he isn't providing any either.