How do I make my spouse head of household instead of me?

[macuser_22 · Accepted solution]

If you are marred and live together nobody can be HOH.  Only if you lived apart for the last 6 months of the year can HOH be claimed and never on a joint tax return.

Head of Household is for UNMARRIED taxpayers with a related dependent or married and have not lived with their spouse at anytime during the last 6 months of the tax year AND has a child, stepchild or foster child that can be a dependent.
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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.
(You could be considered unmarried if your spouse did not live in your home at any time during the last 6 months of the tax year).
If you were considered married for part of the year and lived in a community property state, special rules may apply in determining your income and expenses. See Publication 555 for more information.

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) - a parent does not have to live with you to be a qualifying person.

4. If the qualifying person is your qualifying relative, their gross income must have been less than $4,300 (do not include non taxable Social Security) and you provided more than 1/2 of their support

5. You must be able to claim the dependent for the qualifying person except in the case of divorced or separated parents (that lived apart) and the noncustodial parent is claiming the dependent.

A Qualifying person is either:
A qualifying child or a qualifying closely related relative and meets certain other requirements, however if you are considered unmarried it can only be your child, stepchild, or foster child.

See IRS Publication 501 for more information about who is a qualifying person and a worksheet to determine the cost of keeping up a home.

See IRS Pub 501 for more information
https://www.irs.gov/publications/p501#en_US_2020_publink1000220779

[BillM223]

If you are married, then neither one of you can file as head of household except in particular situations. Please see "Head of Household" (especially "Considered Unmarried) on page 24 of IRS Pub 17..

[rjs]

On a tax return, head of household does not mean that you are the breadwinner or the person in charge of the household. It's a filing status, like single or married filing jointly. As macuser_22 said, this special filing status is primarily intended for a single person with a child, but it can also be used by a married person with a child who does not live with his or her spouse. If you are married and live with your spouse you cannot file as head of household. The only filing statuses you can use are married filing jointly or married filing separately. You will almost certainly pay less tax or get a bigger refund if you file as married filing jointly.

[xmasbaby0]

By "head of household....."    Are you really asking about the order your names are entered on your tax return?   Were you listed first last time and you are asking if you can be listed second with your spouse as the primary taxpayer?    Do not try to change the order of the names on a joint return.  It can cause confusion and delays for processing your return and it will mess up things that transfer over from 2020 to 2021.

ORDER OF NAMES ON A JOINT RETURN  https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901551-does-the-order-of-the-names-on-a-joint-return-matter