Mistakes happen. There's always a chance of potential error when filing your taxes. This can be due to someone else already filing your dependents and so its important to act fast as the IRS will return the one who files it first so if you are late in filing, your appeal might be rejected.
The IRS will not notify you by telling who the person was who claimed your dependent. You will have to find that out yourself. If you think the person claiming your dependent does not deserve it, you need to follow a few steps in order to claim your dependent as well as get your refund.
3 steps to follow if someone claimed your dependent
You should not panic if someone claims your dependent, instead you should act fast and follow these few steps:
Send an email to the IRS in which you should claim your dependent. The IRS will look in to the issue and then sooner or later refund you after some investigation. However, it might take from six to eight weeks to get this issue solved.
You should have proper documentation with proofs such as birth certificates and other proofs so that it is easy for you to get your refund. You should also have those documents which show the proof that your dependent lived with you for six months or more. Some of the examples of proper documentation include social service records, school and medicare as well as an official letter from the dependents school.
After you have filed your request as well as arranged the documents, sooner or later you will get a call from the IRS and they will enquire some information from you. You will receive a call after two months from the IRS. The IRS might ask you some questions, and if you have made any mistake in the filing and documentation they will ask you to make some amendments.
The person who has already claimed the dependent will also get a letter from the IRS. If none of you removes the claim that you made, the IRS will then step in and do more inquiry. The IRS will then further do more inquiries and will also charge some taxes or penalties on the person who wrongly claimed the dependent.
If you believe that the decision that IRS took was wrongly made you can make an appeal and also take your case to the united states tax court and get your problem solved.
Know about your options and rights before a dispute arises
Dependent disputes are common, and many cause a lot of problems. You should be careful about these things and know how to handle the IRS audit and also know the proper way of claiming a dependent. You have the complete right to appeal and represent to the IRS, you can hire a tax accountant to do the job for you and deal with the entire case for you by charging some extra fees.
A local tax pro will be an expert on all these situations and can easily help you to get your problem solved. There must be numerous tax pros in your area and you can easily find the one who has good reviews from the people and then immediately hire him to solve your issue.
It is true that it might cost you a few bucks but in the end, it can only be them who can get your work done if not done by you.
Wrapping up
Someone else can easily claim your dependent and this is the case mostly between a husband and a wife after they are divorced normally. So you don’t have to make a lot of guesses about who is the one who has claimed your dependent.
In such cases, the IRS looks in to this matter and the claim on dependents is only given to the person who has taken longer care of the person. Apart from this, you should know how to deal with the IRS in order to get your problem solved, know how to file your request and answer the IRS when they question you.
