I have never once heard of the IRS rejecting a dependent claim that a cadet entering from high school or college that was a legal dependent of their parents the previous year.
You can make it complicated, pay for advice of a CPA/tax advisor/attorney etc or you can rely on precedence that extends back at least to 1979. The precedence is parents can take a full year deduction for for the CY their mid/cadet entered the SA.
If you list E1 on the Intuit based tax forms - they will accept that and make the application free to use. You are not lying - whoever created that question on the form was simply not sophisticated enough to create the Mid/Cadet option. The intent of the question is not to determine income levels but to determine if mid/cadet qualifies for their discount program.
If you really want to cover yourself and you take the deduction, submit a letter with your tax return stating why you took the deduction with a copy of the .ppt slide showing what you relied on for guidance. This will show to the IRS (who is not going to ask to begin with) that you acted in good faith and thus will avoid any penalties (that aren't going to be imposed to begin with because they simply do not care enough to scrutinize your return because you declared a dependent based on what others have done for at least the last 38 years)
What the IRS should be doing is investigating all those children/dependents that disappeared between the last year social security numbers for dependents weren't required and the first year they were required. 1000's if not millions of children seemingly disappeared that year.
You can make it complicated, pay for advice of a CPA/tax advisor/attorney etc or you can rely on precedence that extends back at least to 1979. The precedence is parents can take a full year deduction for for the CY their mid/cadet entered the SA.
If you list E1 on the Intuit based tax forms - they will accept that and make the application free to use. You are not lying - whoever created that question on the form was simply not sophisticated enough to create the Mid/Cadet option. The intent of the question is not to determine income levels but to determine if mid/cadet qualifies for their discount program.
If you really want to cover yourself and you take the deduction, submit a letter with your tax return stating why you took the deduction with a copy of the .ppt slide showing what you relied on for guidance. This will show to the IRS (who is not going to ask to begin with) that you acted in good faith and thus will avoid any penalties (that aren't going to be imposed to begin with because they simply do not care enough to scrutinize your return because you declared a dependent based on what others have done for at least the last 38 years)
What the IRS should be doing is investigating all those children/dependents that disappeared between the last year social security numbers for dependents weren't required and the first year they were required. 1000's if not millions of children seemingly disappeared that year.
