Head of Household You may be able to file as head of household if you meet all of the following requirements. You are unmarried or considered unmarried on the last day of the year. You paid more than half the cost of keeping up a home for the year. A qualifying person lived with you in the home for more than half the year (except for temporary absences, such as school). However, your dependent parent does not have to live with you. See Special rule for parent, later, under Qualifying Person. A foster child must live with you all year. If you qualify to file as head of household, your tax rate usually will be lower than the rates for single or married filing separately. You will also receive a higher standard deduction than if you file as single or married filing separately. Kidnapped children. A child may qualify you to file as head of household, even if the child has been kidnapped. For more information, see Publication 501. How to file. If you file as head of household, you can use either Form 1040A or Form 1040. Indicate your choice of this filing status by checking the box on line 4 of either form. Use the Head of a household column of the Tax Table or Schedule Z of the Tax Rate Schedules to figure your tax. Considered Unmarried You are considered unmarried on the last day of the year if you are legally separated from your spouse, according to your state law, under a divorce or separate maintenance decree. You are also considered unmarried on the last day of the tax year if you meet all of the following tests. You file a separate return. You paid more than half the cost of keeping up your home for the tax year. Your spouse did not live in your home during the last 6 months of the tax year. Your spouse is considered to live in your home even if he or she is temporarily absent due to special circumstances. See Temporary absences, later. Your home was the main home of your child, stepchild, or adopted child for more than half the year or was the main home of your foster child for the entire year. (See Home of qualifying person, later, for rules applying to a child's birth, death, or temporary absence during the year.) You must be able for to claim an exemption for the child. However, you can still meet this test if you cannot claim the exemption only because the noncustodial parent is allowed to claim the exemption for the child. See Exception under Support Test for Child of Divorced or Separated Parents in chapter 3 for situations where the noncustodial parent is allowed to claim the exemption for the child. The general rules for claiming an exemption for a dependent are explained in chapter 3. If you were considered married for part of the year and lived in a community property state (listed earlier under Married Filing Separately), special rules may apply in determining your income and expenses. See Publication 555 for more information. Nonresident alien spouse. You are considered unmarried for head of household purposes if your spouse was a nonresident alien at any time during the year and you do not choose to treat your nonresident spouse as a resident alien. However, your spouse is not a qualifying person for head of household purposes. You must have another qualifying person and meet the other tests to be eligible to file as a head of household. Earned income credit. Even if you are considered unmarried for head of household purposes because you are married to a nonresident alien, you are still considered married for purposes of the earned income credit (unless you meet the five tests listed earlier). You are not entitled to the credit unless you file a joint return with your spouse and meet other qualifications. See Publication 596, Earned Income Credit, for more information. Choice to treat spouse as resident. You are considered married if you choose to treat your spouse as a resident alien. Keeping Up a Home To qualify for head of household status, you must pay more than half of the cost of keeping up a home for the year. You can determine whether you paid more than half of the cost of keeping up a home by using the Cost of Keeping Up a Home worksheet, shown later. Costs you include. Include in the cost of upkeep expenses such as rent, mortgage interest, real estate taxes, insurance on the home, repairs, utilities, and food eaten in the home. Costs you do not include. Do not include in the cost of upkeep expenses such as clothing, education, medical treatment, vacations, life insurance, or transportation. Also, do not include the rental value of a home you own or the value of your services or those of a member of your household. Cost of Keeping Up a Home Amount You Paid Total Cost Property taxes   $      $    Mortgage interest expense           Rent           Utility charges           Upkeep and repairs           Property insurance           Food consumed on the premises           Other household expenses           Totals   $      $    Minus total amount you paid (         ) Amount others paid   $    If the total amount you paid is more than the amount others paid, you meet the requirement of paying more than half the cost of keeping up the home. Table 2-1. Who Is a Qualifying Person for Filing as Head of Household? 1 IF the person is your . . . AND . . . THEN that person is . . . Parent, Grandparent, Brother, Sister, Stepbrother, Stepsister, Stepmother, Stepfather, Mother-in-law, Father-in-law, Half brother, Half sister, Brother-in-law, Sister-in-law, Son-in-law, or Daughter-in-law You can claim an exemption for him or her 2 A qualifying person. You cannot claim an exemption for him or her NOT a qualifying person. Uncle, Aunt, Nephew, or Niece He or she is related to you by blood and you can claim an exemption for him or her 2, 3 A qualifying person. He or she is not related to you by blood 3 NOT a qualifying person. You cannot claim an exemption for him or her Child, Grandchild, Stepchild, or Adopted child He or she is single A qualifying person. 4 He or she is married, and you can claim an exemption for him or her 2 A qualifying person He or she is married, and you cannot claim an exemption for him or her NOT a qualifying person. 5 Foster child 6 The child lived with you all year, and you can claim an exemption for him or her 2 A qualifying person. The child lived with you all year, and you cannot claim an exemption for him or her NOT a qualifying person. 1A person cannot qualify more than one taxpayer to use the head of household filing status for the year. 2If you can claim an exemption for a person only because of a multiple support agreement, that person cannot be a qualifying person. See Multiple Support Agreement. 3You are related by blood to an uncle or aunt if he or she is the brother or sister of your mother or father. You are related by blood to a nephew or niece if he or she is the child or your brother or sister. 4This child is a qualifying person even if you cannot claim an exemption for the child. 5This child is a qualifying person if you could claim an exemption for the child except that the child's other parent claims the exemption under the special rules for a noncustodial parent discussed under Support Test for Divorced or Separated Parents in chapter 3. 6The term "foster child" is defined under Exemptions for Dependents in chapter 3. Qualifying Person See Table 2-1 to see who is a qualifying person. Any person not described in Table 2-1 is not a qualifying person. Home of qualifying person. Generally, the qualifying person must live with you for more than half of the year. Special rule for parent. You may be eligible to file as head of household even if the parent for whom you can claim an exemption does not live with you. You must pay more than half the cost of keeping up a home that was the main home for the entire year for your father or mother. You are keeping up a main home for your father or mother if you pay more than half the cost of keeping your parent in a rest home or home for the elderly. Temporary absences. You and your qualifying person are considered to live together even if one or both of you are temporarily absent from your home due to special circumstances such as illness, education, business, vacation, or military service. It must be reasonable to assume that the absent person will return to the household after the temporary absence. You must continue to keep up the home during the absence. Death or birth. You may be eligible to file as head of household if the individual who qualifies you for this filing status is born or dies during the year. You must have provided more than half of the cost of keeping up a home that was the individual's main home for more than half the year or, if less, the period during which the individual lived. Example. You are unmarried. Your mother, for whom you can claim an exemption, lived in an apartment by herself. She died on September 2. The cost of the upkeep of her apartment for the year until her death was $6,000. You paid $4,000 and your brother paid $2,000. Your brother made no other payments toward your mother's support. Your mother had no income. Because you paid more than half the cost of keeping up your mother's apartment from January 1 until her death, and you can claim an exemption for her, you can file as a head of household.