What Filing Status Can You Use?(p6)

Use this filing status if any of the following was true on December 31, 2011.

• You never were married.
• You were legally separated, according to your state law, under a decree of divorce or separate maintenance.
• You were widowed before January 1, 2011, and did not remarry in 2011.

Use this filing status if any of the following apply.

• You were married at the end of 2011, even if you did not live with your spouse at the end of 2011.
• Your spouse died in 2011 and you did not remarry in 2011.
• You were married at the end of 2011, and your spouse died in 2012 before filing a 2011 return.

For federal tax purposes, a marriage means only a legal union between a man and a woman as husband and wife, and the word spouse means a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. A husband and wife filing jointly report their combined income and deduct their combined allowable expenses on one return. A husband and wife can file a joint return even if only one had income or if they did not live together all year. However, both persons must sign the return. Once you file a joint return, you cannot choose to file separate returns for that year after the due date of the return.

If you file a joint return, both you and your spouse are generally responsible for the tax and interest or penalties due on the return. This means that if one spouse does not pay the tax due, the other may have to. Or, if one spouse does not report the correct tax, both spouses may be responsible for any additional taxes assessed by the IRS. You may want to file separately if:

• You believe your spouse is not reporting all of his or her income, or
• You do not want to be responsible for any taxes due if your spouse does not have enough tax withheld or does not pay enough estimated tax.

If you want to file separately, you must use Form 1040 or 1040A. You cannot use Form 1040EZ. See Innocent Spouse Relief in Section 5, later.