What should my income tax filing status be?

Question

I just started my job and I plan on filing my taxes at the end of the year. I have 2 kids and I stay with my father. For my 2006 income taxes I filed as Head Of Household. I was wondering if my father files as Head of Household then do I file my status as Single?

Answer 1

To file as Head of Household, you need to have qualifying dependents. The qualifying dependent needs to be at least 50% supported by the Head of Household filer. In theory, you both could file Head of Household, if you would consider one child a dependent of your father, and one child a dependent of you. Of course, this would imply that you pay your father for usage of the home. But in practice, that can be hard to prove between family members.

If you really just started working though for the first time in 2007, you may have virtually no tax liability for this tax year, and your father would receive more of abenefit from claiming all of you as his depenants.

Apparently Judy didn't like my answer, but I prove to her and you how it can be done. Your father writes a lease for you and one of your children, while he allows the other child to stay for basically free. (In this hypothetical, lets say he charges you for two rooms when you are using three) If you pay the lease amount (regardless of whether or not you actually make physical payments), you could argue that you have paid for 50% of the cost for maintaining the home; whereas, the other child is clearly being supported by the father and he is maintaining 50% of the home. When it comes to taxes, you can do a lot if you think outside of the box. Even Judy would have to admit this would work.

Answer 2

The situation is much more complicated than indicated in the other answers. You cannot pick who files as head of household. You need to determine the proper filing status for both you and your father, and this depends on several factors.

First, how old are you, and are you a student? Are you under 19 or under 24 and a full-time student? If so, then unless you provided over half of your own support, you are a qualifying child of your father. In this case, unfortunately you cannot file as head of household, or even claim your children as dependents. Your father would file as head of household, assuming he is unmarried. He would claim you and your children as dependents. You would file as single with zero exemptions.

Now if you are over 18 and not a student, or over 23 even if you are a student, then I need to know:

1. Did you live with your father all year?
2. Did you earn less than $3,400 in 2007?

If the answers to the above questions are yes, then again your father can claim you as a dependent, and you cannot claim your children as dependents. Your father will file as head of household, assuming he is unmarried. You will file as single with zero exemptions.

Finally, if you do not qualify as a dependent of your father, as described above, then you may choose to claim one or both of your children.

If you claim both of your children, then your father may not file as head of household. If you provided over half of the household support, then you could file as head of household, otherwise you would file as single. Your father would file as single.

If you claimed one of the children, and your father claimed one of the children, then whoever provided over half of the household support would be head of household, and the other person would file as single.

Answer 3

If you are staying with your father, and you aren't paying more than half of the cost of maintaining the household, then yes, you'd file as single. Your father and you can't EACH provide OVER half of the cost of maintaining the household, so you can't both file as head of household. Whoever pays more than half, if one or the other of you does, is the one who can file h of h.

Answer 4

sure valuable you do and with the intention to objective and not create some vast problems on your father and mom on their very very own 1040 earnings tax return in the event that they are nevertheless qualified to declare you as a qulalifying based on their 1040 earnings tax return once you're married and could be required to fill out and document you and your husband MFJ earnings tax return and then at that factor the IRS turns into in touch and be contacting your father and mom to substantiate who and why they did declare you on their earnings tax return for that 365 days and then thid remember might desire to fee you father and mom to could could pay back some quantity of a refund that they might have gained while they could could fill out and document a 1040X amended guy or woman earnings tax return to desirable the blunders that they made on the unique crammed out and filed 1040 return in the process the tax submitting season for this purpose and time of their existence. good success to you. desire which you come across the above enclosed coaching sensible. 09/24/2012

Answer 5

Judy is correct.

Note to Griffin: The IRS will see through this sham lease in a heartbeat and will disallow the dual HoH claims.