Turbo Tax won't let me file as Head of Household with 19 year old daughter in college

[BillTeach]

Turbo Tax will only allow me to file as Single and not Head of Household.  I have deleted my daughter's information and reinputted it.  I clicked the whole year for how long she's lived with me and she grossed under 5500.  She did file her own taxes last year.  

[xmasbaby0]

Yo may have entered something incorrectly in MY INFO.   You need to make sure you said in MY INFO that she was a student.   We have seen some users who miss the screen to say that.   Watch for a screen in MY INFO titled "Less Common Situations"  --- there is a list of stuff---you can click that she was a student.   Then the over $5050 of income does not matter.  You can still claim her as a qualified child.  And if she lived away at school, that was a "temporary absence" so you can say she lived with you all year.

It is okay for her to file her own tax return but her return must be marked that she can be claimed as someone else's dependent.

Watch how you answer the weird question that asks if she paid for over half her own support.  Say NO.

Make sure you did not say that her SSN is "not valid for employment."

[MindyB]

At your daughter's age, she must be a full-time student to be a qualifying child for you to claim Head of Household. 

Revisit the entry in the "My Info, Your household" section. Make sure all the interview screens have been completed accurately: 

• Navigate to My Info, Your household, select your daughter
• Choose "My child", continue and be sure her name, date of birth and proper citizenship is complete. 
• Continue, and answer the question about living arrangements and parents. 
• Continue, and answer any less common situations. Here, make sure "was a full-time student in 2024" is checked.
• Lastly, enter the child's SSN and be sure that "Not valid for employment is printed..." is NOT checked.

[BillTeach]

I did all those things correctly several times with the same result.  

[BillTeach]

Yup, I did all that several times.  

[xmasbaby0]

Am I Head of Household?

https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/tax-filing-status/qualify-head-household...

• What is a "qualifying person" for Head of Household?

If you qualify as Head of Household, when you enter your marital status (single or married filing separately) into MyInfo, and then enter your qualifying dependent, TurboTax will offer HOH as your filing status.

[DoninGA]

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@BillTeach wrote:

Yup, I did all that several times.  

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Delete the dependent and then re-enter.

Make sure you select that the dependent is your child, that the lived in your home for the Whole Year, make sure their date of birth is correct in the format MM/DD/YYYY, that they were a full time student, that they did NOT provide over one-half of their own support OR you indicated that you provided over one-half of their support. And that you did Not check the box labeled "not valid for employment" in the section for entering their Social Security number.

[BillTeach]

I did those.  Pretty frustrated.  

[SusanY1]

I would like to take a deeper look at this. However, I need a diagnostic file which is a copy of your tax return that has all of your personal information removed. You can send one to us by following the directions below:

TurboTax Online:

1. Sign into your online account.
2. Locate the Tax Tools on the left-hand side of the screen.
3. A drop-down will appear. Select Tools
4. On the pop-up screen, click on “Share my file with agent.”
5. This will generate a message that a diagnostic file gets sanitized and transmitted to us.
6. Please provide the Token Number that was generated in the response.

TurboTax Desktop/Download Versions:

1. Open your return.
2. Click the Online tab in the black bar across the top of TurboTax and select “Send Tax File to Agent” *
3. This will generate a message that a diagnostic copy will be created.  Click on OK and the tax file will be sanitized and transmitted to us.
4. Please provide the Token Number (including the dash) that was generated in the response.  If possible, please also provide a screenshot of the number.  Otherwise, the number is sometimes filtered out as potential personal information.

*(If using a MAC, go to the menu at the top of the screen, select Help, then, “Send Tax File to Agent”)

[DoninGA]

OK...if the dependent is showing up as being either a dependent child or a dependent relative after you complete the section for the entering them as dependents.  The program should give you some indication that they have been approved as a dependent.

Your Filing Status must be either Single or Married Filing Separately.  

Once that happens the program is going to ask you specific questions to determine whether you are eligible for Head of Household status.  The questions asked are did you provide over one-half the cost to maintain your residence.  If filing as Married Filing Separately did your spouse live in the household at any time in the last six months of the year.  Answer No.