I am married but separated for 3 years. Should I file tax return as single or married filing separately?

Answer 1

Do you have a legal separation, as recognized by your state of residence, or are you just living apart?

If you are just living apart, the other answers are correct. If you have a legal separation, you are considered unmarried for tax purposes.

If you are considered unmarried for tax purposes, you can file as head of household (with a dependent child), or single.

Otherwise, you must file as married filing separately if a joint return with your spouse is not desired or possible.

Answer 2

As long as you are still married you will have to file as a married person. Married filing separately is the worst of the options but unless you and your wife can resolve some differences you would probably benefit from married filing jointly.

There are a lot of missing details here so the benefits of MFJ may be the same as MFS if there are no children, no home mortgage and so on. There are situations where children are involved and there is no contact with the spouse that head of household will apply.

Answer 3

Since you are married, you cannot file as Single.

If you maintain a home for a dependent child who lives with you and pay more than half the cost of maintaining your household you can file as Head of Household. Otherwise your only choices are Married Filing Separately or Married Filing Jointly.

If you can work it out with your estranged spouse you'll both usually fare better on a joint return. If that's not possible and you don't qualify for HoH, your only remaining option is Married Filing Separately.

Answer 4

I think I answered a similar question before, so I'll spare my typing here. You can do the following, remember if you qualify, "head of household" filing status is the most beneficial one.

You can't file single! You can choose married filing separately (MFS) as your filing status if you're married and have no dependents (means basically have no kids ). The filing status may benefit you if you want to be responsible only for your your own tax. However, this is the least desirable filing status, because taxpayer has rather limited credits and lowest standard deductions.

You maybe able to choose Head of Household (HH) status, if you meet certain tests. This can apply to you even if you're not divorced or legally separated.

if you qualify to file as HH status instead of as MFS, your tax liability may be lower, you are able to claim earned income credit and other credits and also your standard deduction will be higher.

You may be able to file as HH, if you meet the following requirements:
1) You're considered "unmarried" on the last day of the year.
2) You paid more than half of the cost of keeping up your home for the year.
3) "Qualifying person" (means you took care of them, can be your kids, also parents who doesn't live with you and others) lived with you more than half of the year.
Note:Kids in college (temprory abcense) will be considered lived with you.

If you need more info, please click below link of IRS. Check under "FILING STATUS"

Answer 5

If you and your spouse are on civil terms you should consider filing jointly. If you aren't going to get back together and can't get a divorce, filing for a decree of legal separation will make you single for tax purposes.

Answer 6

You're still married - you can't file as single. File as married filing separately.