Filing Status

• If your filing status is married filing jointly, married filing separately or head or household, you are not a dependent of someone else and will claim yourself, and/or your spouse and dependent children, on your tax return.
  
  

Dependent Status

• If you are a dependent, such as a minor child or college-bound child of a taxpayer who has the right to claim you on his tax return, you cannot claim an exemption for yourself if the person who can claim you as a dependent exercises that option. Essentially, the IRS allows only one personal exemption per person for any tax-filing year. In order for another person to claim you as a dependent, you must be the biological or legally placed child of the tax filer. You must be age 18 or under unless you are a full-time student under the age of 24 or permanently disabled. You must have lived with the tax filer for at least half the year unless a court order, such as a divorce decree, stipulates that the noncustodial parent has the right to claim you on his tax return. If you paid for more than half of your own support during the tax-filing year, no one else can claim you on his tax return regardless of meeting the other criteria.
  
  

Personal Exemption Benefits

• Claiming yourself on your tax return allows you to use the personal exemption to reduce your adjusted gross income for the tax filing year. Reductions in your adjusted gross income result in a decrease of your total tax due.
  
  

Choosing the Best Deduction Distribution

• If you are the dependent child of a tax filer, work with your parents to estimate the tax advantages of your parents claiming you on their tax return versus you claiming yourself. It is in the household's best interest to allow the personal exemption on the tax return where it makes the most impact on taxes due.