laurenlianne
Jan 30, 2009, 07:38 PM
I have raised my boyfriends children since they were babies when their "Egg Donor" walked out on them. I have paid over 90% of the kids expenses due to their father losing his job early last year. I can legally claim them as dependents under the "non-relative dependent" status, but I don't get to claim the EIC or the child tax credit without them being "blood" relatives. It's a substantial difference between the return I would get if I could claim those credits and not. Would I automatically get audited if I claimed I was the children's aunt, instead of UN-related. There is nobody else that would claim them, and I pay all my taxes like a good citizen. Please help as I hate to do something illegal, yet it's so unfair that the $8,000 I paid in childcare this year is just "Gone" (the credit I get for that is only $673!), only because I didn't give birth to them. Yet if I were the blood relative, I could get all these extra credits!