Taxes
Filing Status
Table of Contents
Start here: which filing status fits your life right now
Your tax filing status goes well beyond a label. It locks in your standard deduction, your tax bracket, and whether you can claim credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit, all hinging on your situation on December 31. If you are wondering, am i considered single or married for tax purposes this year, the rule is straightforward: if you were legally wed on the last day of the tax year, the IRS treats you as wed for the entire year. This holds true even if your spouse passed away during that time and you did not remarry. To understand your own situation, read "my filing status and why does it matter" because your status determines your tax outcome. For unmarried taxpayers supporting a household, you will want to understand whether you can file as head of household and what are the rules. You must be considered unmarried on the final day of the year, pay more than half the cost of keeping up a home, and have a qualifying person live with you for more than half the year. A notable exception is that a dependent parent does not need to live under your roof. A common point of confusion arises when someone asks, can i file as head of household if i live with my parent but don’t pay rent. The cost-of-keeping-up-a-home test still requires that you personally cover more than half the household expenses, so living rent-free typically will not satisfy that threshold. If you have lost a spouse, the qualifying surviving spouse filing status and how long does it last allows you to use joint-return tax rates for up to two years after the year of death. You must have a dependent child and maintain a home for them. For the immediate tax year of the loss, knowing what filing status should I use if my spouse died this year lets you still file jointly if you otherwise qualify. When you file jointly, you combine all income on one return and claim a much larger standard deduction than you would as a separate filer. This preserves that favorable treatment before transitioning to the surviving spouse status later.
Make the choice that saves you the most money
For most couples, the real question comes down to married filing jointly vs married filing separately which is better, and the IRS says filing jointly saves money in the majority of households. Filing separately does have narrow use cases when it lowers tax, but it comes at the cost of losing several valuable credits.
Understanding how does my filing status change my tax brackets and standard deduction helps you see exactly what you forfeit by filing apart, because the IRS ties your bracket thresholds directly to your status, giving a separate return lower thresholds than a joint return. Beyond the math on rates, you also need to check which filing status makes me eligible for the earned income tax credit, because the general rule is that filing separately disqualifies you. There is a narrow exception that treats you as not married for EITC purposes if you do not file jointly, have a qualifying child living with you for more than half the year, and meet the other requirements, but most separate filers lose the credit entirely.
Since the landmark ruling, the answer to can same-sex married couples file jointly after the supreme court decision is an unambiguous yes. Lawfully wed same-sex couples are treated exactly as opposite-sex couples for all federal tax purposes, so you generally must file using either the joint or separate status for spouses and you enjoy the same standard deduction, bracket structure, and credit eligibility. If you were legally united on the last day of the year, your filing status follows the same rules regardless of where you live or where the ceremony took place.
Fix a filing status mistake or change your mind
If you have not filed yet, change the filing status before you submit the return. Once the return is accepted, however, the path changes. Filing status is one of the items that requires an amended return if it was reported incorrectly. Fixing it promptly protects your bottom line, especially because you risk penalties if you choose the wrong filing status on my tax return. To change my filing status after i already filed, you must file an amended return using Form 1040-X. You must instead begin the filing status amendment process by preparing Form 1040-X. Attach a corrected version of your Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR for that tax year along with any new or changed schedules that the adjustment affects. One practical relief is that if the IRS already caught and corrected the error during its initial review, you do not need to amend for that same issue. For a claim that results in a refund, you generally need to file the amendment within three years of your original filing date or two years from when you paid the tax, whichever is later.
