I started doing my taxes and was going through the instructions for the federal form when I was stopped short by seeing this passage:
Kidnapped child. If your child is presumed by law enforcement authorities to have been kidnapped by someone who isn’t a family member, you may be able to take the child into account in determining your eligibility for head of household or qualifying surviving spouse filing status, the child tax credit, the credit for other dependents, and the earned income credit (EIC). For details, see Pub. 501 (Pub. 596 for the EIC).
This not something new, apparently. I looked back as far 2018 (the earliest year for which I still have instructions) and saw that it had been there but I had not seen it. I suspect that it goes back even further.
The rules for who can claim a child as a dependent and thus get a deduction or a tax credit is complicated by the fact that it depends on the time the child stayed with the tax filer. For example, both divorced parents cannot claim their child as a dependent. It depends on how the child splits their time between the two adults. A similar issue arises with foster children who may not spend the entire year with one family. That problem is common and so one can see the need for general rules to cover the various possibilities.
But how often does the kidnapped child problem occur? Often enough, apparently, that the IRS felt the need to create a rule to cover it. It is often the case that a kidnapped child has been taken by the non-custodial parent. But I would imagine that a parent whose child has been kidnapped would be far too distraught to care about whether that child can be claimed as a dependent.
It’s not like they need to be filling out their taxes at the very moment when they discover what happened. You still have the rest of the year to think about such things, after the dust has settled or what have you. The rest of the year, you still need money, no?
There is also pretty much everything coming in the form of tax credits these days. (Generally a terrible way to run things.) Lots of people depend on those things quite a bit, and I wouldn’t want to underestimate that. There’s no question that they’re going to care, when it means being able to pay the bills or not. Possibly some would be too distracted or whatever so that they don’t actually manage to take care of it (and file on time, etc.), but it would definitely still matter in the end and they’d “care” in that sense.
WTaF?! If you’re the legal guardian/custodian of a child, then it bloody shouldn’t matter if the kid’s been unlawfully kidnapped — you’re still, presumably, paying for whatever the kid needed before being kidnapped, and will surely need after he/she is returned to you. It’s not like parents just stop saving money, drop their kids from their health-insurance plans, and move to smaller and cheaper houses as soon as their kids get abducted. And whatever they save from not having to feed abducted kids will surely be more than offset by the expense, both material and emotional, of trying to find their kids and get them back.
It’s the reason that America is the only country in the world to routinely fingerprint children--because of the sheer number of child abductions in the US. This forms part of the “lowest common denominator” problem that the USA faces.
You’re all assuming that these people aren’t arseholes and actually care about their kids
I’m sorry, but in what dystopian hellhole is it even possible for a mother to “kidnap” her own children? Short of her being an actual danger to the child, she should have free access to her own child.
^ Obviously being a danger to her child is one scenario where it can be considered kidnapping; breaching custody is another.
WMDKitty, please stay as uninformed as you are now.
FWIW, my wife worked for many years (office job) for government child protection services. She got so stressed about it, she quit.
This sort of thing and worse happens all the time.
Enlighten us Morales. What did your office job wife teach you about women who pose no danger to the child ‘kidnapping’ their children? That some misogynist guy has smeared them anyway to get custody?
(For those who don’t know, Morales has previously mentioned his wife is a conservative Catholic. So what we are almost certainly talking about here is a situation where a mother is a perfectly fit parent, but she does some harmless type of sex work -- dancer, cam girl -- and is therefore deemed by misogynists like Morales an unfit parent.)
You have answered your own question. Silentbob makes the very common sexist assumption that anyone suggesting a woman might possibly pose a threat to the wellbeing of her child (or any child for that matter) must therefore obviously be a nasty horrible lying misogynist. Our culture is drenched in this pernicious myth. That fact is part of the reason it’s so distressing when such self-righteous indignant left-liberal assumptions run up against the inconvenient truth that women can be irresponsible violent drug-abusing criminals who are a danger to their children just like men can. It’s part of the reason why the acts of Myra Hindley were so distressing to a nation -- women aren’t supposed to be like that, and when a woman demonstrates unequivocally that they absolutely can be, the cognitive dissonance is strong.
My wife is a nurse who works in child safeguarding -- not an office job. In the good old days when she worked in A&E, the things she told me would upset me while the story was going on and possibly for a few minutes afterwards. Stories would involve hideous injuries and bereaved families, but they’d be things it was relatively easy to move on from. I’ve asked her to stop telling me (anonymised) stories from her more recent work, because they have a tendency to make me start crying days or weeks later, usually because of the cognitive dissonance referred to in the previous paragraph where a child (or children) are being neglected or actively abused by their mother.
I echo the sentiment that if you believe mothers who kidnap their children are innocent victims of a misogynist system -- clutch that touching naivety close to your heart and hope you never have to learn the truth.
No, Silentbob.
Your prurience in the name of sniping at me is rather deplorable.
FWIW, she has never told me explicit details, or given names.
Doesn’t want to talk about it. As I said, stress. And quitting.
But I got this much: parents doing $badstuff$ to their progeny happens enough that there’s never enough resources to fully address the problem.
Silentbob, wow. We crossed.
You’re truly a specimen.
No. She was working for the South Australian Government, Department for Child Protection.
It was a professional setting, she has the qualifications.
Why you make light of abused and battered children is beyond me.
I am not joking. I am dead serious. I am not lying.
Battered and abused children is what haunts her. Children who had to be removed from their parents for their own safety. And worse.
This mob: https://www.childprotection.sa.gov.au/
@Silentbob:
I suppose you’re going to tell me my wife is wasting her time at work doing the biddings of misogynists too? Or fabricating the details of her caseload? Or perhaps that her caseload, or even she herself, doesn’t exist? Just interested how deep your commitment to denial goes.
Former teacher here. Yes, mothers can be abusive and/or neglectful, and can also violate custody agreements for reasons other than rational concern for the child’s welfare. I’m not sure why anyone would deny that, unless you’re a time traveler from the Victorian era.
A 2022 study on children in the US found that parents were responsible for about 90% of family abductions. Within that set, mothers were responsible for around 60% of abductions, and around 40% of “kidnappings” (a subcategory of abductions in which the child felt physically threatened and coerced.) The disparity is probably partly due to the fact that mothers tend to abduct younger children than fathers do; a very young child can’t put up significant resistance in the first place.
If the IRS allows a significant tax break for kidnapped minor children … hey, has anyone seen Barron Trump lately?
@Prax, 15:
A certain kind of lefty has to, even (especially?) in 2023, because it doesn’t fit the narrative -- the one where “women” = “victims”.
Sonofrojblake will never pass an opportunity to let out his inner misogynist (as opposed to his outer transphobe). It’s so amusing! I love him!
Yep, I’m misogynist to say women are human beings with agency and faults, just like it’s transphobic when I state clearly that trans women are women, trans men are men, and trans rights are human rights. Thanks for popping up to demonstrate what I meant, though, most helpful.
I thought I vaguely recalled that handle. You’re this person, aren’t you?
I think you can safely be ignored mate.
As a parent, the first time I noticed that, it truly freaked me out and that was years ago when my 2 were still young enough for me to claim them on my taxes
It still makes me shudder!