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| If you obtain a divorce for the sole purpose of filing a tax return as unmarried individuals, and at the time of the divorce you intend to and and do, in fact, remarry each other in the next tax year, you and your spouse must file as married individuals in both years. |
| If you obtain a court decree of annulment, which holds that no valid marriage ever existed, you are considered unmarried even if you filed joint returns for earlier years. You should amend your tax returns if you have filed returns as married filing jointly for years for which this annulment of marriage applies. |
| If you are married and are considered unmarried, you may be able to file as Head of household or as qualifying widow(er) with qualifying child. If you are married and are considered unmarried for tax purposes, it does not mean that you can file a return using the single filing status. Therefore, if you are considered married, you and your spouse must file as either married filing jointly or married filing separately. Furthermore, if you are married or considered married, you and your spouse can file as married filing jointly or filing separately but never as single. Also, if you are married and can be considered unmarried for tax purposes, you and/or your spouse can file as Head of Household, married filing jointly, married filing separately, but never as single. You are considered married for the whole year if, on the last day of your tax year, you and your spouse are married and living together. You cannot be considered unmarried for head of household tax purposes if you are married and living together at the end of the year. |
| For federal tax purposes, individuals of the same sex are married if they were lawfully married in a state or foreign country whose laws authorize the marriage even if the state or foreign country in which they now live does not recognize same-sex marriage. This is different than the registered domestic partnership rules from previous years. Federal never recognized registered domestic partnership so individuals would file a return using married filing jointly for certain states but single for federal tax purposes. |
| If individuals of the same sex are married, they generally must use the married filing jointly and married filing separate status. Furthermore, individuals of the same sex can generally use the Head of household filing status if they did not live together the last 6 months of the year and they have a dependent child and meet other requirements. |
| If your spouse died during the year, you are considered married for the entire year. You don't start filing as qualifying widow or widower until the following year. Additionally, if your spouse died during the year and you did not remarry before the end of the year, your filing status will be married filing joint. You also have the option to file as married filing separately. However, if your spouse died during the year and you remarried before the end of the year, you file a joint return with your new spouse. Consequently, your deceased spouse's filing status has to be married filing separately. |
| Copyright © 2014 [Hera's Income Tax School]. All Annual Filing Season Program rights reserved. |
| Revised: 12/14/14 |
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