Whose Child Is This? Shifting of Dependents among EITC Claimants within the Same Household

Using a panel of household level tax data, we estimate the degree to which dependents are "reassigned" between tax units within the same household, and how these reassignments affect combined tax liabilities. Reassigning dependents reduces combined tax liabilities on average, suggesting some household level coordination. Additionally, when earned income tax credit (EITC) benefits expanded in 2009, reassignments increasingly involved adding a third child to tax returns to claim these new benefits. However, the subgroup reassigning towards three child tax units actually increased total household tax liabilities, suggesting that some tax units may prioritize minimizing their own tax burden or focus on particularly salient aspects of tax policy.