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Show Tax commission simplifies form SALT LAKE CITY The Utah State Tax Commission has created a simplified form for taxpayers tax-payers who claim an extra personal exemption for dependent disabled children or adults on their state income in-come tax return. The form, TC-40D, provides a simplified means of verifying the handicap of a dependent child or adult. The 1989 Utah Legislature allowed an extra personal exemption exemp-tion to aid the caregivers of adults and children who have significant to severe intellectual or physical handicaps (see the instruction booklet for details). Children who are in special education ed-ucation programs due to learning disorders or behavioral disabilities are not eligible, nor are adults who are diagnosed as mentally ill, such as schizophrenics (unless they have other handicaps that meet the criteria outlined below). The forms will be available through the school districts' special education programs, the early intervention in-tervention program, state and local health departments, local offices of the State Division of Services to the Handicapped and the State Tax Commission. See the tax booklet for more details and telephone numbers. Eligible Persons Infants and Toddlers - Children from 0 to 2 years of age are eligible if they are enrolled in an early intervention in-tervention program monitored by the Utah Department of Health, or are enrolled in a school district preschool pre-school handicap program. School-age Persons -Dependents from 3 to 21 years of age are eligible if they are classified as handicapped under guidelines adopted by the State Board of Education Edu-cation as being intellectually handicapped, han-dicapped, severely intellectually handicapped, deaf, orthopedically handicapped, visually impaired, severely se-verely multiply handicapped, deaf and blind, or autistic. Students must be enrolled in a school district special education program, in a preschool pre-school handicap program or in the schools for the deaf and blind. Children who live in state-supported state-supported facilities such as group homes or the training school are not eligible. People With Disabilities - Persons Per-sons 1 8 years of age or older (unless enrolled in a school district special education program, see 'School-age Persons' above) must have a severe, chronic disability or a combination of mental and physical impairments likely to continue indefinitely. The individual must also require a combination com-bination or sequence of special interdisciplinary or generic care, treatment or other services that may continue throughout life and must be individually planned. Disability means, but is not limited lim-ited to, autism, central nervous system damage due to birth defects, genetic disorders, trauma or disease, and includes encephalitis, meningitis, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, mental retardation, severe dyslexia or persons with severe sensory, orthopedic or-thopedic or neurological impairments. im-pairments. In short, the disabilities must be chronic, lifelong, result in substantial substan-tial functional limitations and require re-quire specialized care. Having a handicap license plate, for instance, does not automatically mean eligibility el-igibility for the handicap exemption. exemp-tion. To claim this special exemption: 1. Complete the "exemptions" section sec-tion on your state income tax return as usual, then, on line 2-d (Handicapped) (Han-dicapped) list one additional exemption ex-emption for eacAhandicapped dependent. This is applicable to the long form and the short form. 2. Attach to the return the completed TC-40D "Disabled Exemption Verification" form for each child or adult claimed. The TC-40D must be signed by an authorized representative rep-resentative as indicated on the form. Taxpayers claiming this exemption exemp-tion must provide verification as indicated. |