File your return and claim your EIC, you cannot get in trouble for claiming your children that you have the right to claim. Your ex and his lovely new wife will get flagged and audited just as someone else mentioned. They will have to prove their case or pay back all of that EIC plus penalties and interest after Exams gets done with them. If you are unsure, call 1-800-829-1040 and talk to someone there and they will be able to guide you on how to make sure your return is filed properly and you get your refund. Make sure if you do call that you give yourself plenty of time, sometimes the hold can be up to an hour but once you are in, you will get the correct information. Also make sure you can keep your frustration in check and not take it out on the person on the phone, the more respect you treat them the more helpful they feel. Those guys and gals on the other end of the phone get verbally abused all day, they really appreciate the ones that don't treat them like garbage. Good luck.

You could easily get her arrested!

just a hair on the highly illegal side.

agree three!

Agree three

go after ur ex's pension then. same thing happened to my mom's friend. say your entitled to part of his pension because you did have a life and children together. they're playing hard ball you should too. don't let them kick you around!

contest it !!! you'll win and get the money anyway and she will get fined ...

First off, YDI for waiting so long to file. Second, if you truly have the right to claim them, you should have the documentation to back it up and will be able to get it straightened out. Unless you're too lazy to do the work; considering how long you procrastinated on your filing, I would say that's a possibility. :-/ Third, it kind of bugs me that everyone is bagging on the new wife. Sure, she may have gone and actually filed the paperwork, but her husband (you know, the father of the children in question) had to have signed off on everything. Why is no one threatening to "whoop his ass" or calling him names? The new wife could have just been following instructions from her husband. I know that when it comes to taxes I follow directions from two people: my husband and my accountant. I don't even try to figure it out on my own anymore because I over-complicate it and mess things up. My husband and the accountant, though, know what they are doing. So, for example, if my husband had kids from a previous marriage and told me that we were claiming them on our taxes, I would have him give me whatever information I needed for the accountant and take care of it. Technically, sure, that would mean that I had filed on my step-children, but it was with their father's knowledge and direction. Luckily my husband has no children from previous marriages, but still, my point is valid. The husband has to go in and sign the taxes before they can be sent off on joint-returns so he's just as much at fault as the new wife. TL/DR - The ex-husband is just as much (if not more) at fault that the new wife.

Dear idiot who joined the Dark Side for cookies. We said we had cookies, we didn't say you could have them. Sincerely, the Dark Side.

OP- she can't prove "support"... file it on yours and report her to IRS... anonymously.... **** her!