Can a child be a qualifying child of more than one person? Can both people claim the Child Tax Credit for the same qualifying child?

A child can meet the criteria to be a qualifying child of more than one person. This situation arises when the child satisfies the relationship, age, residency, support, and joint return tests for multiple individuals. However, even though a child can be a qualifying child for more than one person, only one person can actually claim the child as a qualifying child for tax benefits, including the Child Tax Credit.

The Internal Revenue Code and IRS publications provide specific tiebreaker rules to determine which person can claim the child as a qualifying child when more than one person is eligible. These rules are as follows:

1. If only one of the persons is the child's parent, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the parent.
2. If the parents file a joint return together, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the parents.
3. If the parents do not file a joint return together but both parents claim the child, the IRS will treat the child as the qualifying child of the parent with whom the child lived for the longer period during the year.
4. If the child lived with each parent for the same amount of time, the IRS will treat the child as the qualifying child of the parent who had the higher adjusted gross income (AGI) for the year.
5. If no parent can claim the child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year.
6. If a parent can claim the child but no parent does so, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year, provided that person's AGI is higher than the highest AGI of any of the child's parents who can claim the child.

Given these rules, only one person can claim the Child Tax Credit for the same qualifying child. The other person cannot claim the Child Tax Credit or any other tax benefits based on that qualifying child. This ensures that the tax benefits associated with a qualifying child are not divided or duplicated between multiple taxpayers.

Sources:
Publication 501 (2023)
Publication 1380
Publication 17 (2023)
§ 152. Dependent defined
Publication 504 (2023)
§ 24. Child tax credit