Who should get the deductions for the children for taxes?

The rule is fairly simple: the person who has the children more than 50% of the time gets to claim the children on taxes and then qualifies for head of household status.  You cannot change the head of household status by agreement as this is a firm rule.  You can change who claims the dependents by agreement and the delivery of the official IRS form.  See: IRS link for Releasing Dependency

This is one of the most magical areas of the law where parties can actually “create money” by exchanging dependents in certain situations.  This is usually done by the low wage earner giving the high wage earner one or more of the deductions.  This does increase the amount of child support being paid, but it also provides tax savings for the person paying.  So even though you are paying $100 extra a month, it may be that you will have tax savings of $150 a month.  You just created $250 a month that the family did not have before.

Although there are many variations on this, and it does not work for everyone, it is a great way to provide more money for everyone.

Regardless, whenever there is a child support order, I recommend that everyone adjust their withholdings on their paycheck to make sure you are receiving the all the money you are entitled to.  Money is tight and there is no reason have the government hold your money, interest free.