Head of household status is not intended for this purpose, but it may be technically permissible. There are two factors you will need to pay special attention to. First, the child must not only be the taxpayer‘s dependent, but must live in the taxpayer‘s home for more than half the year in order to be a qualifying person for head of household status. So the fact that you have two children that you could split is not, by itself, enough. Child number 1 would have to live in home number 1 for at least 183 nights, and child number 2 would have to live in home number 2 for at least 183 nights. If you don’t indicate that the child lived in the home more than half the year, TurboTax one award you the status.
secondly, married spouses must spend the entire second half of the tax year living apart. It’s not clear what would happen if you had a meet up in a hotel in between homes for a rendezvous, but if one spouse visits the home of the other spouse for even one night between July 1 and December 31, that will defeat the head of household status for both spouses. Head of household status is intended for single parents and for married couples who are separated and on the way to a divorce, and spending the night together in one of the homes defeats the status for both spouses.
