On Doing Your Taxes When Your Child is Kidnapped
My wife came home from work on a Tuesday, peered into the kitchen, and asked where our Danny was. Not at the neighbors, not in his room, not in the crawlspace again. Danny was gone. She looked at me, and we shared that immediate and indescribable chill of every parent’s worst nightmare: Your son’s been kidnapped, and you don’t know if you can still take him as a tax deduction.
This is a piece of satire posted on The Morning News. I thought it was real at first, but quickly realized it was fake. But! The IRS really does have a section that tells you how to file your taxes if you have a kidnapped child you need to claim as a dependent: “The child must be presumed by law enforcement authorities to have been kidnapped by someone who is not a member of your family or the child’s family.” Yikes. This makes my insides hurt.
This made me laugh. I wonder how many people have had to use it? Although it’s kind of a lame policy because most kidnapping are by people in your family.
I used to do taxes and would be researching something arbitrary and fall into one of these wormholes…
Also depressing?
Death or birth of child. A child who was born or died during the year is treated as having lived with you all year if your home was the child’s home the entire time he or she was alive during the year. The same is true if the child lived with you all year except for any required hospital stay following birth.
Child born alive. You may be able to claim an exemption for a child who was born alive during the year, even if the child lived only for a moment. State or local law must treat the child as having been born alive. There must be proof of a live birth shown by an official document, such as a birth certificate. The child must be your qualifying child or qualifying relative, and all the other tests to claim an exemption for a dependent must be met.
Stillborn child. You cannot claim an exemption for a stillborn child.
Seriously, who thinks of stuff like this? Well did he technically live for a moment? Cause then we get that sweet deduction to ease our pain!
Does the kidnapper get to claim the kid as a dependent? Extra mouths to feed and all.
@brilliantmistake IRS Auditor here. You cannot take a tax deduction for expenses incurred because of illegal activities. You do have to report the income earned and pay taxes on the income from illegal activities however.