Head of Household(p21)

You may be able to file as head of household if you meet all the following requirements.

1. You are unmarried or "considered unmarried" on the last day of the year.
2. You paid more than half the cost of keeping up a home for the year.
3. A "qualifying person" lived with you in the home for more than half the year (except for temporary absences, such as school). However, if the "qualifying person" is your dependent parent, he or she does not have to live with you. See Special rule for parent, later, under Qualifying Person.

A child may qualify you to file as head of household even if the child has been kidnapped. For more information, see Publication 501.

If you file as head of household, you can use either Form 1040A or Form 1040. Indicate your choice of this filing status by checking the box on line 4 of either form. Use the Head of household column of the Tax Table or Section D of the Tax Computation Worksheet to figure your tax.

To qualify for head of household status, you must be either unmarried or considered unmarried on the last day of the year. You are considered unmarried on the last day of the tax year if you meet all the following tests.

1. You file a separate return (defined earlier under Joint Return After Separate Returns).
2. You paid more than half the cost of keeping up your home for the tax year.
3. Your spouse did not live in your home during the last 6 months of the tax year. Your spouse is considered to live in your home even if he or she is temporarily absent due to special circumstances. See Temporary absences, under Qualifying Person, later.
4. Your home was the main home of your child, stepchild, or foster child for more than half the year. (See Home of qualifying person, under Qualifying Person, later, for rules applying to a child's birth, death, or temporary absence during the year.)
5. You must be able to claim an exemption for the child. However, you meet this test if you cannot claim the exemption only because the noncustodial parent can claim the child using the rules described in Children of divorced or separated parents or parents who live apart under Qualifying Child in chapter 3, or in Support Test for Children of Divorced or Separated Parents or Parents Who Live Apart under Qualifying Relative in chapter 3. The general rules for claiming an exemption for a dependent are explained under Exemptions for Dependents in chapter 3.

You are considered unmarried for head of household purposes if your spouse was a nonresident alien at any time during the year and you do not choose to treat your nonresident spouse as a resident alien. However, your spouse is not a qualifying person for head of household purposes. You must have another qualifying person and meet the other tests to be eligible to file as a head of household.

Even if you are considered unmarried for head of household purposes because you are married to a nonresident alien, you are still considered married for purposes of the earned income credit (unless you meet the five tests listed earlier under Considered Unmarried). You are not entitled to the credit unless you file a joint return with your spouse and meet other qualifications. See chapter 36 for more information.

You are considered married if you choose to treat your spouse as a resident alien.

To qualify for head of household status, you must pay more than half of the cost of keeping up a home for the year. You can determine whether you paid more than half of the cost of keeping up a home by using the worksheet shown on this page.

taxmap/pub17/p17-014.htm#en_us_publink1000170810

Cost of Keeping Up a Home         Amount You Paid Total Cost Property taxes $ $ Mortgage interest expense Rent Utility charges Repairs/maintenance Property insurance Food consumed  on the premises Other household expenses Totals $ $       Minus total amount you paid   (       )       Amount others paid   $       If the total amount you paid is more than the amount others paid, you meet the requirement of paying more than half the cost of keeping up the home.

Include in the cost of upkeep expenses such as rent, mortgage interest, real estate taxes, insurance on the home, repairs, utilities, and food eaten in the home.

If you used payments you received under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or other public assistance programs to pay part of the cost of keeping up your home, you cannot count them as money you paid. However, you must include them in the total cost of keeping up your home to figure if you paid over half the cost.

Do not include in the cost of upkeep expenses such as clothing, education, medical treatment, vacations, life insurance, or transportation. Also, do not include the rental value of a home you own or the value of your services or those of a member of your household.

See Table 2-1 to see who is a qualifying person.

Any person not described in Table 2-1 is not a qualifying person.

Your unmarried son lived with you all year and was 18 years old at the end of the year. He did not provide more than half of his own support and does not meet the tests to be a qualifying child of anyone else. As a result, he is your qualifying child (see Qualifying Child, in chapter 3) and, because he is single, is a qualifying person for you to claim head of household filing status.

The facts are the same as in Example 1 except your son was 25 years old at the end of the year and his gross income was $5,000. Because he does not meet the age test (explained under Qualifying Child in chapter 3), your son is not your qualifying child. Because he does not meet the gross income test (explained later under Qualifying Relative in chapter 3), he is not your qualifying relative. As a result, he is not your qualifying person for head of household purposes.

Your girlfriend lived with you all year. Even though she may be your qualifying relative if the gross income and support tests (explained in chapter 3) are met, she is not your qualifying person for head of household purposes because she is not related to you in one of the ways listed under Relatives who do not have to live with you in chapter 3. See Table 2-1.

The facts are the same as in Example 3 except your girlfriend's 10-year-old son also lived with you all year. He is not your qualifying child and, because he is your girlfriend's qualifying child, he is not your qualifying relative (see Not a Qualifying Child Test, in chapter 3). As a result, he is not your qualifying person for head of household purposes.

Generally, the qualifying person must live with you for more than half of the year.

If your qualifying person is your father or mother, you may be eligible to file as head of household even if your father or mother does not live with you. However, you must be able to claim an exemption for your father or mother. Also, you must pay more than half the cost of keeping up a home that was the main home for the entire year for your father or mother. You are keeping up a main home for your father or mother if you pay more than half the cost of keeping your parent in a rest home or home for the elderly.

You and your qualifying person are considered to live together even if one or both of you are temporarily absent from your home due to special circumstances such as illness, education, business, vacation, or military service. It must be reasonable to assume that the absent person will return to the home after the temporary absence. You must continue to keep up the home during the absence.

You may be eligible to file as head of household if the individual who qualifies you for this filing status is born or dies during the year. You must have provided more than half of the cost of keeping up a home that was the individual's main home for more than half the year or, if less, the period during which the individual lived.

You are unmarried. Your mother, for whom you can claim an exemption, lived in an apartment by herself. She died on September 2. The cost of the upkeep of her apartment for the year until her death was $6,000. You paid $4,000 and your brother paid $2,000. Your brother made no other payments toward your mother's support. Your mother had no income. Because you paid more than half the cost of keeping up your mother's apartment from January 1 until her death, and you can claim an exemption for her, you can file as a head of household.