Great Grand Kids - elif for credits?

[Florencene2]

I have some great grand parents taking care of their GGK - are they elig for the credits if so how do you enter the relationship?

[Koss]

Great Grandchild

A great grandchild may be a qualifying child or a qualifying relative. All the rules are the same. If the child's parent or parents were living in the same household during the year, then you need to pay attention to the tiebreaker rules. But the short answer to your question is yes. Under the law, a great grandchild is no different than a grandchild.

According to Pub. 17, a qualifying child may be "your son, daughter, stephchild, foster child... or a descendant of any of them." A great grandchild, by definition, is a descendant of the taxpayer's child.

Based on the individual circumstances of your client, if the child satisfies the criteria to be a qualifying child, then you can simply use grandchild in your software.

If, based on the specific facts, the child is your client's qualifying relative, then you can probably just use other or none to define the relationship. It won't make a difference. Qualifying relative gets them only the dependent exemption, without the child tax credit or the earned income credit.

BMK

[Gary2]

The only differences I can think of, off the top of my head, are a) parents get special position for the tie-breaker rules; and b) the rule for not counting scholarships as support applies only for judging whether the support test is met with regard to parents, not grandparents, etc.