@hooch3131 wrote:
Yes I have two dependents and they are my children…but we live with my mom and she has filed them a previous year but doesn’t plan to file or claim them this year. So do I qualify?
Head of household is a particular filing status that requires three things:
1. You pay more than half the cost of maintaining your household.
2. You claim at least one qualifying person as a dependent, usually your child.
3. You are unmarried, or you are married but have lived apart from your spouse for more than half the year.
Your household is probably your entire extended family (grandmom, mom and kids). You have to pay more than half the total cost (food, utilities, rent or mortgage, insurance, repairs, and so on).
It's possible for unrelated roommates to be members of different households if they keep their lives separate, but it would be very difficult to show that for your extended family. You would need to show that you don't eat together, don't play together, and don't share child care, recreation, or other family activities. Even if you were separate households, you have to pay more than half the cost of your household.
You would also have to claim your children as dependents.
Now specifically regarding dependents, you as the mother always have the first right to claim your children as dependents, even if you live with your mother and your mother provides most of their support. However, you would still have to file as single or married filing separately, not head of household. Your mother would be forced to amend her return, remove the children as dependents and pay back any part of her refund that came from claiming the dependents. This is a very disruptive situation, and before you do that, you should have a long talk with your mother. Actually figuring out who should claim the children for maximum tax savings is complicated and requires testing of different combinations.
