Temporary Absence for education

[RightOn]

According to definition on IRS publication.

"Temporary absences.(p28)

rule
previous topic occurrence Temporary Absence next topic occurrence
Your child is considered to have lived with you during periods of time when one of you, or both, are temporarily absent due to special circumstances such as:
Illness,
Education,
Business,
Vacation,
Military service, or
Detention in a juvenile facility."

Does a child who attended school part-time and was away from home considered to be 'temporary absent'? Or does he have to be a full-time student? The definition there does not say 'full-time' though. It just mentioned "Education".

By the way, I fully understand the requirement to be a full-time student for exemption purpose. But here we are just focusing on the definition of "temporary absences".

[Super Mom]

My understanding is that any absence for education is temporary absence.

[FEDUKE404]

Dealing with temporary absence issues

Several years ago I went to the mats with the IRS for a client who was (legitimately) claiming a child as a dependent. Mom was paying every penny of expenses for child, and a large monthly payment to grandparents with whom child was then living.

Yes, two people tried to claim dependent. With "the facts," there was no way the grandparents could meet the support test. Grandparents were also known to be. . .evasive.

Twice the IRS said "no change" and denied the dependent exemption, but for round #3 I hit them with everything I could find to include, more or less, "Did you even read the rules for 'temporary absence'?" They were firmly stuck on the "six months. . ." issue, just automatically denied, and then moved on to the next case.

Facts for mom included both time in college as full-time student (ROTC program) at a distant college and then time on active military duty (mainly training in multiple locations).

IRS finally sent a "no change" letter and halted demand of repayment of taxes due to loss of exemption and CTC. From first IRS notice until final resolution took at least 18 months! No one knows what happened to the "exemption" for grandparents. . . I would not be surprised if the IRS just let both claim the exemption to close the case.

After things settled down, all is now well with HOH for mom and dependency exemption etc for child.

FE