How To File Taxes as Head of Household

Each year, millions of American citizens, residents of the United States and Puerto Rico who meet federal filing requirements must file federal taxes with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS has established five filing statuses namely:

1. Single
2. Married Filing Jointly
3. Married Filing Separately
4. Head of Household
5. Qualifying Widow or widower With Dependent Child

In order to file as a head of household, the taxpayer must meet certain requirements stipulated by the IRS. First, the marital status of the taxpayer by the last day of the tax year must be single.

Furthermore, the taxpayer must have a qualifying person who lived with the taxpayer in the home for more than half of the year. The IRS considers the following as qualifying persons as long as they meet certain tests: a child (son, daughter or grandchild), parent (mother and/or father), and other relatives such as grandparents, brothers or sisters. There are exceptions to this requirement. If the qualifying person is a parent, the individual can file as a head of household even if the parent does not live with the taxpayer. The taxpayer must demonstrate that she paid more than half the cost of keeping up a main home for the parent during the year. The IRS considers persons to be living together even if the qualifying person is temporarily absent from the home due to illness, business, education, vacations and military service.

In addition to this, the taxpayer must have paid more than half the cost of keeping her main home for the year. An individual can determine whether she paid more than half the cost by adding up all expenses such as property taxes, mortgage, rent, utility, repairs, food and groceries. From this total, subtract the amount paid by the taxpayer and compare that amount with what others paid. If the amount that was paid by the taxpayer exceeds the amount paid by others, then the taxpayer meets the requirement of paying more than half the cost of keeping up the home and therefore can file taxes using the head of household filing status.

A person who is born or who dies within the tax year could be a qualifying person and thus make a taxpayer eligible to file as head of household. The taxpayer must have provided more than half of the cost of keeping up a home that was the main home for this person.