<prompt> Human: Hi, all. Ever since I entered college, I have largely supported myself with scholarships, grants, loans, odd jobs, and freelance writing. Ive always lived well under the poverty level, but I have always had enough to survive. It helps that I boarded with roommates, lived in a rural area with extraordinarily low rent prices, and understood how to survive on extraordinarily low grocery budgets I think at one point I lived on 25 a month - not easy or particularly desirable, but doable. Because of all of these factors, I have never made more than 9000 a year because I was also attending school full time; for this reason, I was told by my mother, who is an accountant, that I didnt have to file taxes even though I lived outside of my mothers home. Unfortunately, I have since learned that this isnt quite true. My mother has been listing me as a dependent even though she hasnt provided significant financial support since I turned 18. In fact, I largely supported her from the ages of 18 to 22, even though I stopped living with her during school breaks when I was 20. I paid her rent, bought her groceries, and helped out with her insurance premiums. Part of the arrangement was that I would give her my W2s and she would use them to do my taxes for me , which I believed was reasonable because she was a tax accountant and I wasnt. So when she told me I didnt get a significant tax return, I believed her. I didnt know she was listing me as a dependent and pocketing my tax return until recently because I didnt look that far into it. I didnt know I had the right to do so because I thought that my financial aid was tied to my status as her financial dependent. At 23, I got pregnant and stopped providing financial support because I no longer had the money to give. We stopped speaking shortly after that for other reasons. I have reason to believe that my mother has been listing me as a dependent, but I didnt file taxes for 2016 because I was unable to work that year. My SO supported me while I recovered from pregnancy, but was unable to record me as a dependent because we werent married then. Now I make about 10k a year and thus have to file taxes. I want to rectify the situation, but I dont know how. Does anyone have any advice?  <response>: IF you are over age 24 it will make it much harder for her to claim you and prove it now. The first trick is to beat her in filing your taxes so that she gets stopped from electronic filing if she does attempt to claim you. She can still send it in manually but that will make her think a little first.If she beats you filing electronically and your return is rejected you can still print it out and file by mail. If the IRS gets two returns claiming the same person they will send out a form ask you to verify you can claim yourself versus your mother. 