Claiming Head of Household Status: Who can claim it and how?

Do you want to lower your taxable income and receive a greater potential refund? Then you may want to look file as the Head of Household on your tax return. It’s better than the single filing status but certain criteria must first be met for you to qualify.

You must pay more than half of the expenses in the household, considered unmarried for the year, and must have a qualifying child or dependent. The IRS provided a series of guidelines to those who find the terms “considered unmarried” and “qualifying child or dependent” a bit confusing. It will help you understand whether or not you are eligible to file under the head of household status.

Rules on Household Maintenance 

One of the requirements in order for you to file as head of household is that you must be the one paying more than half of the expenses needed to maintain your household during the tax year. You, therefore, need to pay more than half of the household expenses including rent or mortgage, utility bills, insurance, property taxes, and other bills.

You can still qualify to file as head of household even if you receive financial assistance toward your household expenses from a parent or other person but you must be the one paying for more than 50 percent of the bills from your own income, savings, or capital.

The Meaning of “Considered Unmarried”

If you wish to file as head of household during tax time, the IRS also requires that you are “considered unmarried”. This means:

• Your return is filed separately.
• Half of the cost to maintain your home for the tax year must be paid by you
• During the last 6 months of the tax year, you weren’t living with your spouse in the home
• For at least 6 months of the tax year, your home was the main home for the person who wants to qualify
• The child must be claimed as a dependent

The IRS will still consider you married for the year that you and your spouse lived in separate homes because of a temporary situation such as military service, business trips, a stay in a medical treatment facility, or attendance at college,

Requirement for a Qualifying Child

For a qualifying child or dependent, the requirement extends beyond just your own son or daughter. The criteria for each of the following categories must be met to be considered a qualifying child:

• The child must be your biological child, stepchild, foster child, sibling, step-sibling, half-sibling, or a descendant (child, grandchild, great-grandchild, etc.) of one of these relatives.
• During the tax year, the child must have stayed within your home for longer than six months.
• You must be older than the child.
• The child needs to be under 19 if he is not a student, or under 24 is he goes to college full-time, at the end of the tax year.
• During the tax year, the child must have not spent money to pay for more than half of his living expenses.

You may be eligible to file as ahead of household even if you couldn’t claim your child as a dependent in some cases. If the child stayed in your home for more than half of the year and you were divorced or a separated parent, you are allowed to file as head of household. The same thing goes when you were given the right to claim the child as a dependent by the divorce or separation agreement.

Requirements for Qualifying Dependent

You can still qualify to file as head of household even if your dependent does not meet the requirements to be a qualifying child. As long as you provide more than half of the qualifying dependent’s financial support, and she lived with you for more than half a year, the following relatives are considered qualifying dependent for the head of household filing status:

• Even if your biological child, stepchild, foster child, sibling, step-sibling, half sibling or a descendant (child, grandchild, great-grandchild, etc.) does not meet the age requirements to be a qualifying child, if one these relatives is permanently and totally disabled, he or she will qualify.
• Your mother or father.
• Your stepfather, stepmother, niece, nephew, a sibling of one of your parents, or your son-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law or sister-in-law.

You may still file with the status of head of household even if your father or mother did not stay with y our for more than half of the tax year. As long as you paid for more than half of the living expenses for  your parent’s main home for the whole tax year and you are eligible to claim him as a dependent