RUMOR: The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to children born to parents illegally in the U.S. Critics argue that automatic birthright citizenship could be changed by revoking the statute. Others say it would require a constitutional amendment because they believe the 14th Amendment requires birthright citizenship.
Answer: Each child can only be claimed as a dependent by one parent (except when married couples file taxes jointly). Typically, in the case of divorced, separated, or never married parents, it is the custodial parent who is legally able to claim a child as a dependent for tax purposes.
ONLY the custodial parent can claim: 1  head of household filing status due to that child. 2  earned income credit due to that child. 3  the credit for child and dependent care expenses. 4  the exclusion for dependent care benefits (i.e. from the W-2 form). If a parent can claim the child as a qualifying child but no parent does so claim the child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year, but only if that person s AGI is higher than the highest AGI of any of the child s parents who can claim the child.