Tiebreaker rules for the Earned Income Credit

Sometimes a child meets the tests to be a qualifying child of more than one person. But only one person can treat the child as a qualifying child for the Earned Income Credit.

To determine which person can treat the child as a qualifying child, the following tiebreaker rules apply:

• If only one of the persons is the child's parent, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the parent.
• If the parents do not file a joint return together but both parents can claim the child, the parent the child lived with for the most time during the year could claim the child. If the child lived with both parents the same amount of time, the child would be claimed by the parent with the higher adjusted gross income (AGI).
• If no parent can claim the child as a qualifying child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year.
• If a parent can claim the child as a qualifying child but no parent does claim the child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year.

In most cases, the taxpayer should be able to tell you whether his or her AGI is higher than the AGI of the child's parents or other person.