Thank you for this last minute consideration. I have spent the last 25 years as a
Correspondence Examination Technician doing audits by mail / phone; I just
celebrated 35 years of service to the Internal Revenue Service two days ago. I have
performed thousands of audits of this classified issue of dependent exemption: the
King decision, after 3 years, has influenced this change in the Form 8332
I think that the new "Nights" provision will have an impact based on:
(1) The logic of using 'nights' instead of days will cut down on the number of
misinterpretations in the law. Children need their sleep at night, they sleep at their
residence. 8-10 hours for youngsters is over a third of the day; if attending school /
day-care, the child would not be home. If a child lives at home, the person working
during the DAY usually has control of deciding the 'away from home' daytime
caretaker / school.
(2) The number of audits with self-serving statements from day-care / schools
of "this person drops off / picks up" the child will (or should) drop off. The fact that
someone drops off a child doesn't mean the child lived with them. This will
reinforce better school records. ANECDOTAL NOTE: In the past few years, more
schools have listed both parents on their records, but this is for emergency
information. Very few schools now show from which address the child attends
school. States (like Missouri) require the child to attend the school from an
address within its district (535 Missouri school districts, the largest number, per
capita, of school districts in the US) or else the parents pay the tuition...
(3) People working nights to "get ahead" -- (advanced schooling, better night pay,
etc.) will have a tougher time if they drop their child off at 9PM at the other parent's
residence, pick the child up at 5AM and trundle them off to school. This adversely
affects the poor. However, a simple statement from the employer(s) that they
worked so many hours at night during the year would resolve a question of this
nature. This leaves the 'night' provision open to that interpretation by the other
parent. Again, the school statement / daycare statement becomes more important
for consideration.
(4) The fact that grandmother has grand-maternal rights to exercise from a court
order only means that the time away from mom or dad is taken away from each
equally. If it gets involved with a multiple grandparent grand-parenting rights (4
separate times / residences) and parental rights (2), this will have to be crossed
by Appeals / Courts. I should then wish that a multiple support agreement would
be encumbered by all these parties. It could be so stated in the regulations, that
(yet) a different form would have to be filled out to show which grandparents' /
parents' rights are not being trampled upon--but by mutual agreement. (No more
Solmon.)
(4) Separate sections for signing for one year and for all future years will be
worthless without a definite social security number and name for each party on the
Form 8332. Many times, 2 or 3 childrens' names / some SSN's are squeezed onto
one Form 8332. This needs to be addressed more aggressively, a separate form
for each child or the form is null and void.
Comment on FR Doc # E7-08378
This is comment on Proposed Rule
Dependent Child of Divorced or Separated Parents or Parents Who Live Apart
View Comment
Attachments:
Attachment on IRS_FRDOC_0001-DRAFT-0024
Title:
Attachment on IRS_FRDOC_0001-DRAFT-0024
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