Hi, my fiance and I (a US citizen) have been engaged for a few years and she lived in the Philippines while I lived and worked in the US. We have a son that is now 6 yrs old. He was born in the Philippines (US citizen by birth) and lived with his mom until 2 months ago when they finally came here. My fiance and I got married last week, they both live with me now.

Up until now I've always filed my taxes as Single with no dependents, even though I supported my wife-to-be and child 100% while they were overseas. I never really thought about claiming my child on my tax forms, because I didn't think I would be qualified, given that my child lives overseas and had no SSN... but a friend of mine suggested for me to look into it.

So my question is, would I be qualified to get some kind of tax refund or credit covering the 6 years that he lived abroad? If so, how should I go about filing the paperwork? Thanks.