A US citizen child lives with his NRA father overseas, who has full custody. His mother is a US citizen.
Is the child considered independent, to claim the Recovery rebate on his own, or does the mother still have a right to claim him as a dependent?
The tiebreaker rules may indicate this case:
If no parent can claim the child as a qualifying child, the child is treated as the qualifying child of the person who had the highest AGI for the year.
Does the US citizen parent still have a right to claim the child as a dependent, since she technically has a higher AGI than the NRA father, no matter what his income, since he has no US tax responsibility? Or is the child considered independent?