Head of Household filing status

[jkmizz]

Using TT Deluxe to file my daughter's taxes.   She is 25, owns her own home and had a new baby daughter in Sept of 2023.   TurboTax had a note that if the child was born in 2023, to mark that they lived with my daughter the "whole year".   This is the guidance in the tool, versus stating 4 months.   When marking the whole year and stating she was single and paid more than half of her household expenses, it set her status as Head of Household.

IRS publications state that a qualifying child must have lived with you for at least 6 months to use HOH filing status.   Is TurboTax handling this incorrectly by using the newborn for the Child Tax Credit but not considering the number of months for HOH status?  

[xmasbaby0]

An exception is made for newborns.   It is always ok to say that a newborn lived with you for the whole year, even if the child was born on December 31.   Your daughter can file as HOH with her baby as her qualifying dependent.   Her child will also make her eligible for the other child-related credits like child tax credit or childcare credit.

[VolvoGirl · Accepted solution]

From IRS Pub 501 page 13, https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf

Death or birth of child
A child who was born or died during the year is treated as having lived with you more than half the year if your home was the child's home more than half the time the child was alive during the year. The same is true if the child lived with you more than half the year except for any required hospital stay following birth.

Child born alive
You may be able to claim as a dependent a child born alive during the year, even if the child lived only for a moment. State or local law must treat the child as having been born alive. There must be proof of a live birth shown by an official document, such as a birth certificate. The child must be your qualifying child or qualifying relative, and all the other tests to claim the child as a dependent must be met.