Legal Question in Family Law in Ohio

Dependency exemption and noncustodial parent...

ANSWER:

If you wanted to change the �every other year� provision of your existing court order, you would have to file a Motion to Modify with the appropriate court. From what you have described, if the original court order is from Ohio and if ex-husband is still in Ohio and you are in Oregon, it would be the court in Ohio that would have �continuing exclusive jurisdiction� over all matters regarding child support. So you would have to file your modification motion with the court in Ohio.

If ex-husband is still in Ohio and you are in Oregon, and it�s been more than two or three years since the issue of child support was last reviewed, you might want to contact the District Attorney�s Office in the Oregon county in which you ride (or the Oregon Division of Child Support) and request �support enforcement services.� The Oregon support enforcement agency can then contact the Ohio child support enforcement agency and initiate proceedings for review and modify on your behalf. Cost to you will be minimal, if any.

Lastly, under present income tax law, a divorced noncustodial parent may not claim the child as a dependent without attaching to the income tax return an IRS Form 8332 signed by the custodial parent that gives the noncustodial parent the right to claim the exemption for the tax year in question. (So are as the IRS is concerned, whatever is said in the parties� divorce decree (or other court order) regarding the noncustodial parent claiming the exemption is meaningless and not controlling on IRS.) Notwithstanding anything that is said in the divorce decree, IRS law gives you as the custodial parent the absolute right to claim the child as your dependent. But you also have the right, if you wish to do so, to give over to the noncustodial parent the right to claim the exemption. You do this by signing IRS Form 8332 and giving it to the noncustodial parent, who then attaches it (or a copy of it) to his tax return. Form 8332 can be used to transfer the right to claim the dependency exemption for a particular tax year, for multiple specified years, or for all tax years, depending on how it is written.

I assume you DID sign an IRS Form 8332 at some time in the past. If so, do you have a copy? And if so, what does it say? Again, regardless of what the divorce decree says, so far as IRS is concerned it is the custodial parent who has the absolute right to claim the dependency exemption UNLESS he/she has given that right over to the noncustodial parent. And the only way to validly do so is through the use of IRS Form 8332.

LAWRENCE D. GORIN

http://www.divorcesource.com/OR/pages/ldgorin.html

Law Offices of L.D. Gorin

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Portland, Oregon 97201

Phone: 503-224-8884 (afternoons, Pacific time)

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