What I Found Out Today: I went in to do my taxes early this season and in the process of determining what other deductions we may have, we realized that we could claim my grandmother as a dependent.
Made sense. She lives with us. She makes no money. We completely support her.
The only wrinkle was that my grandmother receives Medi-Cal, so we didn’t want to jeopardize her ability to continue receiving that support. Our thinking was if we claimed her on taxes as a dependent, that it could potentially disqualify her from future Medi-Cal benefits.
Surprisingly (or not), looking online wasn’t much help for this unique tax and social service question. Not Yahoo Answers. Not DHCS. Not CalOptima.
Ultimately, I got Medi-Cal on the phone, and it turns out that yes, you can claim a relative as a dependent on your income taxes and it shouldn’t jeopardize that dependent’s Medi-Cal benefits.
I was told that just as long as the Medi-Cal recipient marked themselves as a dependent on their Medi-Cal application. Simply, you need to identify as a dependent if you are to be claimed as a dependent.
Phew. Taxes are crazy.
