Student Residential Status
When in doubt about tax matters, consult the IRS, which tells us that “The Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2004 set a uniform definition of a qualifying child, beginning for Tax Year 2005”.
Residence — has the same principal residence as the taxpayer for more than half the tax year. Exceptions apply, in certain cases, for children of divorced or separated parents, kidnapped children, temporary absences, and for children who were born or died during the year.
Registering to vote can affect tax status.
4 comments
Good catch, Bryan. I stand corrected.
The Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2004 doesn’t seem like it helps working families, does it?
I think it was specifically crafted to prevent students from voting at their colleges and universities. Look at the timing – 2004, the last Presidential election, from a Republican Congress.
Be that as it may, the people who do the registration should have known about it.
Registration drives are a racket. As I am working as a temp in our local office, I get to see the crassness in action.
These folks who do the paid reg drive thing don’t give a flying rat’s patootie about getting folks registered correctly, they are just turning in forms as fast as they can whether or not the form is filled in correctly or not.
I know we all say it when we stumble across something so, well, awfully wrong…”There Ought to be a Law”, but in the case of shipped in from out of the State/County/Town paid reg drive folks…well…there ought to be a law against it.
In Florida you can register on-line, at the Driver’s License Bureau, at the Supervisor of Elections offices, at your town or city hall, and you can do it year round.
The Driver’s License Bureau is the best bet because you get all of your change of address hassle taken care of in one place at the same time. The only annoying part is that they spell out your middle name in Florida.
Issue or party oriented voter registration is a bad idea, because it opens the system to abuse. The campaigns have a tendency to “lose” the forms of people who don’t agree with them, and they have no way of checking the information on the form.