My son's mother and I have not been together in over five years, my son is now 9 and has lived with me exclusively for the past five years. Each year I have tried to claim my son as a deduction and each year I have been told that someone else has claimed him. I asssumed it was his mother, but I recently spoke with her and she said she has not been claiming him. How do I find out who is claiming him?

Who is telling you he is being claimed? Why aren't they giving you that information? I'm assuming you have a custody agreement that makes you the primary guardian for your son. I would take that agreement down to your local IRS office with your return and show them that you are the one entitled to take the deduction. I would then file amended returns for the past 5 years.

The point is that whoever is taking the deduction is committing fraud and the IRS will be very happy to help you catch them. One point, before you do this, I would inform his mother that you are going to do so. Just in case she was not telling the truth. Give her the chance to come clean before the IRS goes after her.

Agree with ScottGem.

I have nothing to add, as he covered it all very well!

Thank you very much for your quick reply. The man who did my taxes just said that it was rejected. We don't have a custody agreement and we really don't have any issues about my son. When I spoke with his mother she said she didn't know anything about it. I just wanted to know if there was a way to find out that information quickly. Whoever is doing it, is filing before I do. Will the IRS give me this information or is there some kind of privacy rule that will prevent it?

Well the absence of a custody agreement may put a monkey wrench in this. You can claim someone as a dependent as long as you provide more than half their support. Since your son is living with you full time, I would say you qualify. The problem is you may have to prove it and I'm not sure what proof would be acceptable.

But one point is clear. Given the facts as you state them, you are entitled to claim your son and no one else is. That means if anyone IS claiming him, that person is committing fraud.

So I go back to my suggestion about going to an IRS office. While its possible they might not reveal to you who is committing the fraud, I am reasonably sure they will investigate since there is clearly fraud going on.

A couple of other points. I'm concerned about this tax preparer (and I'm not sure I would go back to him). I'm not sure how he could have found out about this. The only possible way would be if your son has a social security number. While its more prevalent nowadays to get one early, there is no requirement for one unless the child has income (from a trust fund or something like that). And, if your son doesn't have a SSN, then I don't see how the preparer could have known someone else was claiming him.

Even if he does have one, I'm still not sure the preparer would know. When your return is filed the IRS would check the SSNs and they might find the same SSN listed on two returns. If that happened, I suspect they would call him both primary filers into an office for an explanation. I doubt if they would sayt something to a tax preparer.

The more I write, the fishier this whole things sounds. I very strongly suggest you contact the IRS immediately about this. If you haven't been able to claim your son for 5 years, you have been cheated out of thousands of dollars. You may even have a claim against the preparer for damages. If I were you, I would be at the nearest IRS office first thing tomorrow.

P.S. And please let us know the resolution of this. I am very curious to see how this plays out. I wouldn't be surprised if the prepaper was a part of this fraud.

Thank you very much for your help. I will be contacting the IRS, and I'll let you know how it all plays out once I found out.