Amending Joint Married return into two Head of Household

[dbekkerman]

My wife and I have been married for many years and lived separately for few last pending the divorce.

My wife and I filed 2023 as Married Jointly but we did NOT live together in 2023 at all and we have 2 kids. Hence each of us could have filed Head of Household (HOH) with one kid attached to each return.

Is it even possible to amend Joint Married to split into two HOHs ? I would like to know if 

a) the IRS laws allows this kind of amend

b) If IRS ok with that,  do we have to file two amended returns (to show HOH status on each of our returns) ?

Just to make it clear, I am wondering the legality of such amend and semantic of execution.  

Thank you 🙂

[DoninGA · Accepted solution]

You cannot amend a tax return to change from filing as Married Filing Jointly to filing separate tax returns after the due date of the original tax return.

[rjs]

And for future reference ...

You can only file as head of household if one of the children lived in your home for more than half the year. If both children lived with one parent, only the parent that the children lived with for more than half the year can file as head of household. You can't "attach" a child to your tax return in order to qualify as head of household if the child did not live in your home for more than half the year.

[dbekkerman]

Thank you for your response 🙂 Appreciate your time 🙂