I have been divorced for 3 years. My Ex-husband does not pay me child support or any additional income. We split everything 50/50. We both work full time. We have two children. We each claim a child. The divorce decree states I claim the youngest child. Last year our oldest did not have any daycare expense because he is old enough to stay by himself. Now we only have one child going to daycare. We split daycare expenses. For 2012 my ex-husband said it would only be fair if I pay him half of line 48 on federal tax form, since I am claiming our youngest and we are both paying daycare. He said his tax preparer told him of this. I went ahead and paid him half. This year line 48 is blank even though we paid the same amount as last year. A friend of mine said he is playing me for a fool, like always, and I should have never paid him the money. Could you please help verify what truth is for me? Thank You

You can both claim this for the amounts that each of you paid for child care. So if you each paid for 50% of it, you can each claim your 50% no matter who is claiming the child as a dependent.so, claiming the child as his dependent for this issue does not matter! aslongas he paid X amount of $'s for work related child care, he gets to claim that amount. The noncustodial parent does not have to claim the child as a dependent to claim his share of child care payments on their tax return