Unmarried, two children together, just bought a house as joint tenants. all of the bills is equally split. Can we both claim head of household and claim a child each?

[jtasavanh]

Unmarried, two dependents together,  house 

[MichaelDC · Accepted solution]

No. There can always only be one head of household. There's going to be one person that spent at least a penny more than the other.

Here are the requirements:

1. You need to pay more than half the cost to run your home (or the home of a qualifying parent) in 2017 (rent, mortgage, utilities, etc.) Only one of you can pay for "more than half". The other would be "less than half".

1. You need support a qualifying person.
2. You were unmarried as of December 31, 2017

When you go through the Personal Info section, TurboTax will let you know if your situation qualifies you for Head of Household.

[Hal_Al]

No.

Neither of you can claim head of Household (HoH) since all of the bills is equally split.

To claim HoH, you must have paid more than half the household bills.

You can split the kids any way you want; 1-1, 2-0, or 0-2.

[MichaelDC]

Good point, Hal_Al!

[jtasavanh]

Then we’ll have to figure out who paid that extra penny

[Hal_Al]

The default way if for the higher income parent to claim HoH.