Unmarried, two children together, just bought a house as joint tenants. all of the bills is equally split. Can we both claim head of household and claim a child each?

jtasavanh · ‎June 4, 2019

Unmarried, two dependents together, house

MichaelDC · ‎June 4, 2019

No. There can always only be one head of household. There's going to be one person that spent at least a penny more than the other.

Here are the requirements:

You need to pay more than half the cost to run your home (or the home of a qualifying parent) in 2017 (rent, mortgage, utilities, etc.) Only one of you can pay for "more than half". The other would be "less than half".

When you go through the Personal Info section, TurboTax will let you know if your situation qualifies you for Head of Household.

Hal_Al · ‎June 4, 2019

No.

Neither of you can claim head of Household (HoH) since all of the bills is equally split.

To claim HoH, you must have paid more than half the household bills.

You can split the kids any way you want; 1-1, 2-0, or 0-2.

MichaelDC · ‎June 4, 2019

Good point, Hal_Al!

jtasavanh · ‎June 4, 2019

Then we’ll have to figure out who paid that extra penny

Hal_Al · ‎June 4, 2019

The default way if for the higher income parent to claim HoH.

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