I believe my brother is wrongly claiming my Mom as a dependant when she is not. She paid for her in law apartment years ago but has a signed document stating she has no $$ interest in the house. she buys her own food, does her own cleaning, laundry, etc... Pays for her own insurance and medicine, and gives my brother $250.00/ month to cover electric, cable, and telephone. Even though she lives at my brothers house, her in law apartment is totally separate. I just found out that my brother has been claiming my Mom for over 5 years even though none of the requirements have been made. what can I do to stop this?
As freqflyer wrote, a SSN can only be used once as a dependent on someone's return. Personally I would be glad if my brother could claim her as a dependent. Better the money stay in the family, rather than going to the government.
And it sounds like Mom has a good social security income since she is paying her own way, thus probably needs to prepare her own income taxes, with the same social security number. A red flag would have been noticed years ago, if in fact your brother was doing this.
Don't know the rules but vaguely think if you provide at least half the financial support for another you can claim them as a dependent.
Someone with more tax knowledge can probably clarify
I agree with the other people. If I did anything at all, I would handle it within family. Probably even the IRS would think someone who would report this was looking for revenge of some form.
Have you even discussed this with your brother? That's the first step. If he has made mistakes, he may be unaware of them. You at least owe him the opportunity to discuss the situation.
I'm wondering also how you've become aware of the situation, without thoroughly finding out the issues behind what you suspect is fraud.
Seriously, you owe your brother the courtesy and sisterly obligation of respect. It could be that there are issues about which you're unaware.
But I can't imagine a person who would be looking to narc on the sibling who is there for their mother on a day to day basis. You have some ugly family dynamics. One word, karma.