Hal_Al
Level 15

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Yes, being age 18 (or even 17) does not prohibit you from claiming Head of Household (HoH) filing status and claiming your younger siblings as dependents.

The main requirements for Head of Household are: a taxpayer that

1) is single or did not live with their spouse at any time during the last half of the tax year.

2) has at least one closely related dependent (usually a child) that lived with the taxpayer for more than half the year

3) pays over half of the support of the household expenses, including rent / mortgage... It is not necessary that you own the house, only that you paid more than half the expenses.

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.A child closely related (siblings count) to a taxpayer can be a “Qualifying Child (QC)” dependent, regardless of the child's income, if:

1.              He is under age 19, or under 24 if a full time student for at least 5 months of the year, or  is totally & permanently disabled

2.              He did not provide more than 1/2 his own support

3.              He lived with the relative (including temporary absences) for more than half the year

4.              He is younger than the relative (not applicable for a disabled child)

5.              If the child meets the rules to be a qualifying child of more than one person, you must be the person entitled to claim the child as a qualifying child (this essentially means that you have the parent’s permission to claim the child, if the child also lived with the parent more than half the year)

6.              If the parents of a child can claim the child as a qualifying child but no parent so claims the child, no one else can claim the child as a qualifying child unless that person's adjusted gross income (AGI) is higher than the highest AGI of any of the child's parents who can claim the child. 

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