Can I file as single or HOH if I haven't lived with my spouse for 5 years? I have filed for divorce (not done). Turbo tax still wants his income and SSN if I select MFS.

[DugganN84]

This is the first year that turbo tax is asking for his ssn and income. I'm not sure how to proceed as that's not something I have access to.

[leeloo]

You can't file as single if you are still married. You may qualify as Head of Household.

Head of Household

You may be able to file as head of household if you meet all the following requirements.

1. You are unmarried or considered unmarried on the last day of the year. See Marital Status , earlier, and Considered Unmarried , later.
2. You paid more than half the cost of keeping up a home for the year.
3. A qualifying person lived with you in the home for more than half the year (except for temporary absences, such as school). However, if the qualifying person is your dependent parent, he or she doesn't have to live with you. See Special rule for parent , later, under Qualifying Person.

Qualifying Person

See Table 4 to see who is a qualifying person. Any person not described in Table 4 isn't a qualifying person

From <https://www.irs.gov/publications/p501#en_US_2017_publink1000220814>

[Vanessa A]

No, you cannot file as single if you are still married.

If you have dependents and pay more than half of the cost of keeping up your house, and haven't lived with your spouse for 5 years, you could possibly file as Head of Household. 

Your only other option is to file as Married Filing Separately.  If you do not have qualifying dependents, this will be your only option.  If you are unable to get his SSN, then you will need to print and mail your return and write on it that you are unable to obtain his SSN while including all the information you have such as name and address if you have it.

Did you by any chance select that you were single last year or other years?  If so, this would be why TurboTax did not ask for his SSN, however, this would be an incorrect filing status if you were still legally married.  

[Opus 17]

Head of household requires that you provide care in your home for a qualifying person, usually your dependent child.  It doesn’t just mean that you are the “head“ or main breadwinner of your household.

You should have been asked for the SSN all along if you were filing MFS.  Income information is only required to calculate your subsidy if you bought a Marketplace health insurance plan (Obamacare).  If you did not use Obamacare with a subsidy, you should be able to enter zero, or leave it blank. If you used Obamacare with a subsidy, you will have to make your best guess.

You might also be asked for a spouse‘s income if you live in a community property state. However, if you have been separated for a long time, your income is probably not considered “community property“ because the marital community probably ended when you separated.  If you just moved into a community property state, that might explain why you have not been asked before.  If you don’t have community property with your spouse, you can probably enter zero. You may want to double check with an accountant in your state.

[DugganN84]

No, I have always filed as MFS. But I guess I could have been filing as HOH after a few years. 

What I think is that I didn't file taxes last year, so it didn't import his info. I don't have his ssn anymore (except I suppose I could use old returns), but I'm guessing turbo tax auto filled this before and I didn't notice. 

I definitely meet all the requirements to not have to fill out the community income/property form. I couldn't figure out how to remove this from TT. I actually just went with another competitor cus it didnt give me these problems. 

[Opus 17]

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@DugganN84 wrote:

No, I have always filed as MFS. But I guess I could have been filing as HOH after a few years. 

What I think is that I didn't file taxes last year, so it didn't import his info. I don't have his ssn anymore (except I suppose I could use old returns), but I'm guessing turbo tax auto filled this before and I didn't notice. 

I definitely meet all the requirements to not have to fill out the community income/property form. I couldn't figure out how to remove this from TT. I actually just went with another competitor cus it didnt give me these problems. 

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If you have been living separately from your spouse, and you provided care in your home for a qualifying dependent, HOH would probably have saved you some money compared to filing MFS.  You may want to go back and file amended returns to claim any additional refund you might be eligible for.

You can amend your 2019 return if you file the amended return by May 17, 2023.  You have another year before the deadline to amend 2020 and 2021 runs out.

Also, if you did not file any return in 2021, you might have lost out on some money.  Certain tax credits were temporarily modified for 2021 so that you could get a refund even if you had no income and didn't work.  These credits generally require you to have a child dependent.  If you have a dependent that qualifies you for HOH, they might also qualify you for some of those credits.

[Mike9241]

with no qualifying dependent your only options are filing jointly or married filing separately. MFS requires his name and SSN. that's because the IRS will check both returns to make sure both used the same method standard deduction or itemized deductions.