Re: upcoming tax question

I have filed married but separate for the last 7 years. My husband passed away this past April. He was the stepfather to my son who was a dependent. Do I qualify to file as a Widower or just as Single? One of the 5 questions asked as I googled it was if I HAVE filed married and joint or if I COULD file married and joint. I filed separate but technically I could have filed married. It implied that I could get the widower credit by filing widowed. We were keeping our things separated due to some of his tax related things. I don't want to be tangled with his stuff and I don't know if filing as a widow would just be stating a fact or if it would tangle me up with him.

posted

In the year of death your only choices are married filing jointly, married filing separately or Head of Household if you have a qualifying child.

Then in the 2 tax years after the year of death you can use the Qualifying Widow status which gives you more benefits than HOH. Read the rules starting on page 5 : https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf