My wife and I have been separated as of mid November of last year. I supported her and my children for the past 7 years and she has not worked until the last week of December of last year. I provided for my wife and two children for 98% of last year. Now, I can not obtain my W-2s until the last week of January. My wife has made plans to try to file and claim our two children's allowances for herself with the help of a friend of her family who does taxes prior to me being able to provide my W-2s. I know that being the higher wage earner for last tax year I am entitled to claim my children's allowance, what can I do now to make sure my wife does not file before me in an attempt to take our children's allowances when she is not entitled, I am concerned that she might find a way to file before I do though she is not entitled to the allowances. Being that we are still married I am in fear that I will not have any way to get back the money for my children's allowances if she finds a way to beat the process. What can I do now to protect my rights now?

Are you saying you are married but separated or married and together?
I would tell her why not go and have the taxes done every way possible and see which way gives the largest return.

She may well get a larger sum since she made little she would most probably be eligible for the EIC. I have no idea though since I have no idea of your incomes, etc...

I think the best way is to come to an agreement and have the tax preparer tell you what you each would get back.
Then if you are eligible for the higher amount offer her the amount she would have gotten and you get the difference.

If that was not the answer you were looking for then Yes she can and most likely will beat you to the punch and claim them and take all the money. If you claim them too later then they can go after you for fraud.
Is that the alternative you were looking for?

I think I would prefer the option of compromising.

My wife and I have been separated as of mid november of last year. I supported her and my children for the past 7 years and she has not worked until the last week of December of last year. I provided for my wife and two children for 98% of last year. Now, I can not obtain my W-2s until the last week of January. My wife has made plans to try to file and claim our two childrens allowances for herself with the help of a friend of her family who does taxes prior to me being able to provide my W-2s. I know that being the higher wage earner for last tax year I am entitled to claim my childrens allowance, what can I do now to make sure my wife does not file before me in an attempt to take our childrens allowances when she is not entitled, I am concerned that she might find a way to file before I do though she is not entitled to the allowances. Being that we are still married I am in fear that I will not have any way to get back the money for my childrens allowances if she finds a way to beat the process. What can I do now to protect my rights now?

Being the higher wage earner does not entitle you to the deductions. Having a support agreement that states you are entitled to them does. Barring that, having primary custody does.

You do not have rights to protect here. It is up to you to come to an agreement with your WIFE. The government does not care one bit if EITHER of you claim the kids, just that you both don't. So like NoHelp said, you can work it out with your wife or just come to grips with the fact that life is sometimes like that and divorce sucks.

Comments on this post
daddy1 (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/members/daddy1.html) disagrees: This is not the answer I am looking for

First, may I call your attention to the guidelines for using the comments feature found here:

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/feedback/using-comments-feature-24951.html

Whether an answer was what you wanted or not, as long its accurate, giving a negative comment is inappropriate.

The problem here is you didn't give us enough information. You say you separated, is it a legal separation? Is there a court filed separation agreement? Generally who can claim the kids is spelled out in such an agreement. Another issue is how you will each be filing.

But the bottomline here is that whoever provided more than half the support gets the deduction. So you claim them in your return. If someone else already did, then you will get notificiation of that fact from the IRS. At that point, you will need to contact the IRS and prove you are entitled to claim them.

The children are Qualifying Child for both of you. The one with higher AGI can claim the child.
Who can claim the child if the parents are divorced, separated or unmarried, read: Your U.S. Tax Return: Child of separated or divorced parents (http://taxipay.blogspot.com/2008/03/child-of-separated-or-divorced-parents.html)

Well first you are not entited to anything, it is an opinion that until proved in a hearing has no basis what so ever. I am sure she may have another opinion of her income used for the kids and so on.
But a separation agreemement needed to be done to cover this.

If you want to file first do so using your last pay check, then if the numbers are different latter, do an amended return in a month or two

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Answer would still be the same but posting the entire situation just once would have been helpful. The "my wife and I are separated/my wife and I are not separated" back and forth is difficult to understand.

You need to get your tax preparer involved in preparing BOTH of your returns. That way, he can model the return and determine which way prodices the biggest refund legally.

You need to work with your wife and make this a Win-Win situation.