Hello and welcome to Moneygirls Quick and Dirty Tips for a richer life.

I'm your host, Laura Adams.

Today's show is about what makes someone a dependent or an exemption for income tax purposes.

It's important to understand who you can claim as a dependent on your taxes because you get a tax exemption for each one.

Tax exemptions are a good thing because they save you money by lowering the income on which your income taxes calculated.

There are two types of exemptions, one personal exemptions and two dependent exemptions.

For 2008 the amount you can deduct for each of these exemptions is $3,500.

But this amount is reduced by a phase out of exemptions once your adjusted gross income or AGI

gets into the six figures.

I received an email from Amanda in Fairfax, Virginia.

She writes, I recently got married to a wonderful guy.

Now, during the post-wetting cleanup, I was filling out new tax forms to change my tax status from single to married.

My question is if I take no deductions and my new husband claims me as a dependent,

can that hurt or help us financially?

Thanks for the question, Amanda, and many congratulations.

My advice is to always take every tax exemption that you can. You can usually claim one exemption for

yourself and one for your spouse. These are the personal exemptions. Your spouse is

actually not considered your dependent, nor you considered his dependent.

Amanda, if no one else can claim your husband as an exemption, I recommend that you do so.

The other category of tax exemptions are for dependents. You can claim one

exemption for each person you can legally claim as a dependent. In order to claim a

child as a dependent they must have a social security number or taxpayer

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