Single parents living in the same home with two children. Can each parent claim one child? And who is the head of household?

[emerald5]

The father is paying for more than 1/2 of the children, s expenses.  But mother wants to take one of the children on her tax return and father take the other.  The question who is the head of household?  Both? or can only one person?

[Opus 17]

Yes, if two unmarried people share a home with their two biological children, each taxpayer can claim one child.  However, only one person can be head of household, that would be the parent who pays more than half of the total household expenses.  The other parent would file as single with one dependent.

What is actually best is complicated, and you may want to test different combinations.  How you report the children will also affect the child care credit or flexible spending account use, if you have that, and will affect EIC, if you qualify.

[Critter1]

Agreed ... running test versions to see if it is better overall for one parent to claim both children & HOH vs each parent claiming only one child.

If you want to play around with different figures and tax scenarios without affecting your original return you can
In the TurboTax CD/Download software by creating a test copy:
1.      Open your return in TurboTax.
2.      From the File menu, choose Save As.
3.      Give the copy a new name to distinguish it from the original (for example, by adding "Test" or "Example" to the file name).
4.      Click Save. You are now safely working in the test copy and anything you do here will not affect the original.
In TurboTax Online, you'll have to create a test account separate from your regular TurboTax account and create a test return there. We recommend adding "test" or similar to your User ID so you can easily distinguish it from your actual account.