Can You Be Married and File Head of Household
For IRS purposes, a caput of household is generally an unmarried taxpayer who has dependents and paid for more than half the costs of the dwelling. This tax filing status commonly includes single parents and divorced or legally separated parents (past the concluding twenty-four hours of the year) with custody. It can as well exist an adult who is supporting a parent or other relative under certain circumstances. These certain circumstances tin be tricky to sympathise. Likewise, your personal situation might be quite complex. For more than help with your tax planning, consider consulting with a financial advisor.
Who Can File as a Head of Household?
There are three specific guidelines the IRS expects you lot to meet to qualify as a head of household (HOH). First, you have to exist single or considered unmarried by the terminal day of the tax year. The IRS considers you unmarried if you meet the following criteria:
- You're divorced or legally separated.
- Your spouse didn't live with y'all during the concluding vi months of the year.
- You and your spouse file separate taxation returns.
If the circumstances of your separation are temporary, the IRS will consider you lot married for tax purposes. Qualifying temporary separations include military deployment, staying in a medical treatment facility or going to college.
Second, you need to have paid more than half the costs of keeping up a home for the year. That includes your rent or mortgage payment, belongings taxes, utilities, repairs, maintenance and groceries. You lot can't include things like clothing, life insurance or transportation. Receiving child support or pension doesn't preclude you from challenge head of household as long equally you're paying more than than 50% of your household costs from your own income or savings.
Finally, you need to have a qualifying dependent living in the home with you lot for more than half the year. For many people who file as head of household, their qualifying dependent is a child. A qualifying child can be your biological child, stepchild, foster child, sibling, footstep sibling, half sibling or a descendant of one of the aforementioned relatives. The child also needs to exist nether the age of nineteen (or under the age of 24 if a full-time pupil). You can also merits these relatives every bit your qualifying dependent if the person is permanently and totally disabled, regardless of age. If the dependent, though, is a sibling, he or she must be younger than you and their gross income must be less than $4,300.
Other not-child qualifying dependents include a parent, step parent, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle and daughter-, son-, mother- or father-in-law. Note that you can merits a parent as your dependent even if the parent doesn't live with you, as long every bit you pay for half the costs of their abode, including if they live in a nursing domicile. The aforementioned is true for a child who is away at college. Once again, they cannot have gross incomes in backlog of $4,300.
Caput of Household Status Advantages
Claiming "head of household" as your filing status (versus filing as single or married filing separately) benefits you lot in two ways. First, you lot'll get a lower revenue enhancement rate. For revenue enhancement twelvemonth 2021, for example, the 12% tax rate applies to unmarried filers with an adjusted gross income that's betwixt $9,950 and $40,525. If you file head of household, however, y'all can earn betwixt $14,201 and $54,200 before surpassing the 12% tax subclass.
Head of household filers also benefit from a higher standard deduction. For the 2022 tax year, the deduction for unmarried filers is $12,550, but it climbs virtually 50% more to $xviii,800 for those filing head of household. Deductions reduce your taxable income for the year, which can bring your tax bill downwards or bump up the size of your refund.
Speaking of the 2022 taxation year, the electric current tax deadline is Apr 15 in 2022. For reference, your 2022 tax return had to be filed by May 17 in 2022 (which was extended because of the coronavirus pandemic).
Tin I File every bit Caput of Household If I Live With My Significant Other?
If you both are unmarried and have children from previous relationships, each of you can file as heads of household as long as yous're adhering to the IRS guidelines (including each of you is paying for more than than one-half of your dwelling costs – east.g., you're evenly splitting the rent and utilities and each of you pays for your own nutrient).
If you accept a child together, only one of you can claim HOH status with that child in mind (the IRS says that a child can be only one person's dependent.)
In the case where only one of you has a child from a previous human relationship, the biological parent can claim HOH status – and the other can claim single condition. But if the biological parent doesn't work outside the home, the earning partner could merits HOH status. In society to claim both the child and not-earning partner as qualifying dependents, the following would have to be true:
- You provided more than than half of their total back up for the year.
- They lived with you lot legally as members of your household for the unabridged year.
- Neither had a gross income that exceeds $4,300.
- Neither is someone's qualifying child.
Tin I File as Head of Household If In that location Are No Children?
If there are no children, you tin can still claim a live-in boyfriend or girlfriend as a qualifying dependent, as long as yous meet the following is truthful:
- The pregnant other lived with you legally the whole twelvemonth.
- You provided more than half his or her total back up for the year.
- His or her income does not exceed $4,300.
- He or she is not someone'southward qualifying child.
Tin I File as Head of Household If I'm Married?
If you accept a spouse, information technology's probable more beneficial tax-wise to file jointly. But if you are filing separately, you can merits head of household condition if you run into these three criteria:
- Your spouse did not live with you the final six months of the year.
- You provided the main home of the qualifying child and paid for more than than half the domicile costs.
- You are challenge your child as a dependent.
Lesser Line
Filing as head of household volition put you lot in a lower revenue enhancement bracket than if you filed as single. It also enables y'all to merits a college standard tax deduction on your tax render. This is because yous are supporting i or more people as well yourself. In plow, the government is lowering your tax burden the same manner it does for married couples with children. This can brand caput of household an very beneficial tax status for the right situation.
Tax Planning Tips
- Finding a qualified financial advisor doesn't have to be hard. SmartAsset's free tool matches you with upwardly to three financial advisors in your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no price to decide which one is correct for you. If you're gear up to find an counselor who can help you lot achieve your financial goals, get started at present.
- SmartAsset tin can help you figure out what yous'll be getting back from Uncle Sam with our gratis tax return calculator.
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