When Can You File as Head of Household

The Head of Household Filing Status typically allows for a more generous revenue enhancement state of affairs to unmarried taxpayers who maintain a dwelling house for a qualifying person, such every bit a child or family relative.

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Central Takeaways

• Head of Household filing status offers more generous revenue enhancement brackets and standard deduction than single or unmarried taxpayers who maintain a home for a qualifying person

• Higher income limits for certain tax credits

• Qualifying persons tin include a kid or other dependent who meets certain eligibility criteria

• Heads of Household must pay more than than half of the household expenses and be considered unmarried for the taxation year

What is the caput of household filing status?

Head of Household filing status typically allows parents or adults with qualifying dependents who provide over half the cost of keeping up a home for a qualifying person to claim a higher standard deduction and be taxed at lower revenue enhancement rates than single taxpayers or those who are married filing separately.

TurboTax Tip: To be considered a head of household, yous must file an individual return, be considered unmarried, not be claimed on someone else's tax render and be able to claim a qualifying dependent on your return.

What are the advantages to filing as head of household?

The caput of household filing status provides two primary benefits to y'all:

More taxable income falling into lower tax brackets
College standard deduction

If y'all file as a head of household, your taxable income will typically be taxed at a lower rate than yous would filing a return equally single or as married filing separately.

For example, in revenue enhancement year 2021:

The 12% tax rate applies to single filers with taxable income between $9,950 and $40,525. Taxable income to a higher place this is taxed at 22%.
If you authorize to file as a head of household, you tin can have taxable income betwixt $fourteen,201 and $54,200 before moving out of the 12% tax bracket and into the 22% taxation bracket.
For case, if your taxable income is $50,000, filing every bit head of household results in $i,032.l less in federal income taxes compared to filing as single.

Heads of household too receive a higher standard deduction than unmarried or married filing separately taxpayers. The standard deduction for heads of household comes to $18,800 in 2021. Unmarried and married filing separately taxpayers are only entitled to a $12,550 standard deduction.

Who is able to file equally a caput of household?

To qualify, yous must meet sure criteria. To file as caput of household, you must:

Pay for more than half of the household expenses
Be considered unmarried for the revenue enhancement year, and
You must have a qualifying kid or dependent.

This tax filing condition includes single parents and divorced or legally separated parents with custody of the kid. Further, y'all tin as well be an adult who provides support for a parent or other relative under qualifying circumstances.

What is required for maintaining a household?

The outset requirement for filing as head of household is that you must have paid for more than half of the expenses involved in maintaining a qualifying household during the revenue enhancement year. This ways that you must have paid more than half of the total household bills, including rent or mortgage, utility bills, insurance, property taxes, groceries, repairs and other common household expenses. In the example of a parent, your parent doesn't need to live with you, but y'all must maintain at least half the toll of their living arrangements.

If yous receive fiscal aid toward your household expenses from a parent or other individual, you can still qualify to file as head of household equally long as you are paying for more than 50 percent of the bills with your own earnings, savings, or uppercase.

What does "considered unmarried" hateful for head of household filing status?

The IRS as well requires all taxpayers who file as head of household to exist "considered unmarried" equally of the last day of the tax twelvemonth. To be considered single ways:

You file a split return
You lot paid more than than half of the cost of keeping up your domicile for the tax year
Your spouse did non live in the home during the last 6 months of the tax year
Your abode was the main home for your child, step child, or foster child for at to the lowest degree half dozen months of the revenue enhancement twelvemonth
You must be able to claim the child as a dependent

Continue in heed that if you and your spouse lived in dissever homes due to a temporary circumstance, such as military service, business trips, a stay in a medical treatment facility, or omnipresence at college, the IRS still considers you married for that tax yr.

What is a qualifying child?

The eligibility of a qualifying kid or dependent extends beyond only your ain son or daughter. To be considered a qualifying child, the kid must meet the criteria in each of the following categories:

The child must be your biological or adopted child, stepchild, foster child, sibling, step sibling, half sibling, or a descendant (child, grandchild, great grandchild, etc.) of i of these relatives.
The child must have lived within your home for more than six months during the tax twelvemonth.
The child needs to be younger than you lot.
As of the cease of the tax twelvemonth, the kid must exist under nineteen if he is not a student, or under 24 if he is a full-fourth dimension college student.
The child must not have paid for more than half of his living expenses during the taxation twelvemonth.

In some cases, you may be eligible to file as head of household even if you lot are unable to claim your child as a dependent. For divorced or separated parents, if the kid lived in your dwelling for more than than half of the yr, y'all may file every bit caput of household, even if the divorce or separation agreement gives the other parent the right to claim the child equally a dependent.

What is a qualifying dependent?

If your dependent does non meet the criteria to be a qualifying child, you may nonetheless qualify to file as head of household. The post-obit relatives are considered qualifying dependents for the head of household filing status as long as you provided more than one-half of the price of maintaining the home and she lived with yous for more half of the year:

Your biological or adopted child, stepchild, foster child, sibling, step sibling, one-half sibling or a descendant (kid, grandchild, great grandchild, etc.) of one of these relatives who is permanently and totally disabled, fifty-fifty if he or she does not see the historic period requirements to exist a qualifying child.
Your mother or male parent.
Your stepfather, stepmother, niece, nephew, a sibling of one of your parents, or your son-in-law, daughter-in-law, begetter-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law or sister-in-police.

Even if your father or mother did not alive with you for more than than half of the tax year, you may still qualify to file equally head of household. If you paid for more than one-half the cost of maintaining a home for your parent's primary home throughout the unabridged tax yr and you are eligible to claim them as a dependent, and so you may be able to file every bit head of household.

How does the head of household status compare to other filing statuses?

Caput of household filing status has more favorable standard deduction amounts and tax brackets than unmarried filers, just less so than articulation filers.

Head of household vs single

Head of household filers tin have a lower taxable income and greater potential refund than the single filing status. The head of household status can claim a roughly 50% larger standard deduction than single filers ($18,800 vs $12,550). Heads of household tin also utilize wider taxation brackets on lower taxable income levels.

Head of household vs married filing jointly

Joint filers can't file as heads of household but receive better standard deduction amounts as well as wider tax brackets on lower taxable income levels. Joint filers have a standard deduction twice as large as single filers and roughly 33% larger than heads of household ($25,100 vs. $18,800 for 2021).

What are the tax brackets for the caput of household filing condition?

Heads of household have more generous tax brackets than unmarried or married filing separately filers. To see the 2022 head of household tax brackets and rates, use a Tax Bracket Calculator or see tax bracket information by year.

What is the standard deduction when filing as head of household?

The standard deduction for caput of household is $18,800 for 2021, which is greater than the Unmarried or Married Filing Separately filing statuses, only less than Married Filing Jointly.

Can two people file head of household on their return?

Two people cannot file every bit head of household on the aforementioned return. They must either file nether the articulation filer condition or married filing separately on separate returns.

Two people can claim caput of household while living at the same address, however, but you both will demand to meet the criteria necessary to be eligible for caput of household status:

Yous must both be unmarried
You must both exist able to merits a dependent as a closely related person
That dependent must reside at the same residence for more than half the year (or, in the example of an elderly parent, they can live elsewhere but you must still have provided them with at least half of their back up)

Can I claim my swain/girlfriend as a dependent and caput of household?

Even if your boyfriend or girlfriend meets the IRS definition of "qualifying relative" dependent, yous still cannot utilise the head of household filing status considering this person is non related to y'all in the required ways.

Learn more about the rules of whether you can claim a fellow/girlfriend equally a dependent on your income taxes.

Can yous claim head of household and non claim a dependent?

Mostly, you need to have a qualifying child or dependent claimed on your render to file using the caput of household condition. However, if you are a custodial parent, you may exist eligible to file using the head of household filing status even though you aren't entitled to claim your child equally a dependent if y'all encounter the following requirements:

You're unmarried or considered single on the last day of the yr
You paid more half the cost of keeping up a dwelling house that was your chief home and the main habitation of your child for more than than half of the year
Your kid counts equally a qualifying child for purposes other than the dependency exemption and the kid tax credit

How head of household filing status helps

Filing as head of household can identify you in a lower tax bracket than you might be under the single or married filing separately filing statuses.

Further, head of household status enables you lot to claim a larger standard deduction, usually allowing y'all to pay less in taxes.

This filing status looks to help single parents or people with qualifying dependents keep more than of their money to pay for the added cost of maintaining a abode for a qualifying person.

Yous may face dissimilar requirements for your state-level tax filing condition.

If you demand help determining your filing condition, you tin can visit the IRS filing status tool to larn more than.

Remember, with TurboTax, we'll ask y'all simple questions near your life and help you fill out all the right tax forms. With TurboTax you can be confident your taxes are done right, from uncomplicated to circuitous tax returns, no thing what your state of affairs.

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Source: https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/family/guide-to-filing-taxes-as-head-of-household/L4Nx6DYu9