Information you hope you never need
via boingboing, Can I still write off a child as a deduction if they've been kidnapped?
According to the IRS website, the answer is "yes," if two conditions are met:
1. The child must be presumed by law enforcement to have been kidnapped by someone who is not a member of your family or a member of the child's family, and
2. The child had, for the taxable year in which the kidnapping occurred, the same principal place of abode as the taxpayer for more than one-half of the portion of such year before the date of kidnapping.
[...]
The IRS also says you can continue to count the missing child as a dependent until they are determined to be dead, or it reaches the year they would have reached 18.
On the one hand, I am sure I'm not alone in finding it really morbid that the tax code deals with this sort of issue so starkly. On the other hand, in any non-trivially-sized population, these sorts of issues (and other similar issues like how to handle taxes for someone who has passed away since their last return) are bound to come up and they have to be published somehow. On the gripping hand, it's still morbid.
According to the IRS website, the answer is "yes," if two conditions are met:
1. The child must be presumed by law enforcement to have been kidnapped by someone who is not a member of your family or a member of the child's family, and
2. The child had, for the taxable year in which the kidnapping occurred, the same principal place of abode as the taxpayer for more than one-half of the portion of such year before the date of kidnapping.
[...]
The IRS also says you can continue to count the missing child as a dependent until they are determined to be dead, or it reaches the year they would have reached 18.
On the one hand, I am sure I'm not alone in finding it really morbid that the tax code deals with this sort of issue so starkly. On the other hand, in any non-trivially-sized population, these sorts of issues (and other similar issues like how to handle taxes for someone who has passed away since their last return) are bound to come up and they have to be published somehow. On the gripping hand, it's still morbid.