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| Tax School Homepage |
| Filing Requirements, standard deduction, filing Status, Dependents, Exemption and filing information |
| You can choose the Married Filing Jointly filing status if you are married and both you and your spouse agree to file together. When you use this filing status, you report your combined income and deduct your combined allowable expenses. You can file using the MFJ filing status even if you had no income or deductions. |
| You must determine your filing status before you can determine your filing requirements, the standard deduction and your correct tax. |
| If the total amount you paid is more than the amount others paid, you meet the requirement of paying more than half the cost of keeping up the home to qualify for the head of household status. |
| Both you and your spouse must include all of your income, exemptions, and deductions on your tax return. In some cases, one spouse may be relieved of joint liability for tax, interest, and penalties on a joint tax return. You can request innocent spouse relief and be relieved from the responsibility of tax, interest or penalties from your spouses tax return. Not all tax, interest and penalties qualify for relief. Under Separation of Liability relief, you divide the understatement of tax plus interest and penalties on your joint return between you and your spouse. If you qualify for the Separation of Liability relief, you would be only responsible for the amount allocated to you. Equity relief is your last resort and the IRS will consider if equitable relief is an option. Equitable relief from an understatement or underpayment of tax. |
| If you do not itemize deductions, you are entitled to a higher standard deduction if you are 65 or older at the end of the tax year. You are considered 65 on the day before your 65th birthday. Therefore, you can take a higher standard deduction for 2014 if you were born before January 1, 1950. |
| If your spouse dies during the year, you may have many choices as to your filing status. For example, Kevin's wife died January 20, 2013, and by the end of 2013 Kevin had not remarried. During 2014, and 2015 he had continued to keep up a home for himself and his child for whom he can claim an exemption. Kevin can file Married Filing Jointly for 2013. Kevin, will be able to file his return as Qualifying widower if he has a dependent child in 2014. He will also be able to file Qualifying widower if he has a child and has not remarried in 2015. |
| A dependent is someone you support and you must have provided at least half of the person's total support in order to claim them as dependents. You can get an exemption for each dependent that you claim on your tax return. If that dependent can be claimed as a dependent by you, they cannot claim him or herself or anyone else as a dependents. |
| If you have a child who was placed with you by an authorized placement agency, you may be able to claim an exemption for that child. However, if you cannot get a SSN or an ITIN for the child, you must get an adoption taxpayer identification number (ATIN) for the child from the IRS. The individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) is for dependents who don't qualify for a regular Social Security number. You need to get an ATIN for a child that does not otherwise qualify for an SSN or ITIN. An adopted child is always treated as your own child. |
| If you choose married filing separately as your filing status, the Child Tax Credit and the Retirement Savings Contribution Credit are reduced at income levels that are half of those for a joint tax return. |
| To qualify for Head of Household filing status, you must be unmarried or considered unmarried at the end of the year. |
| If you and your spouse file separately, and your spouse itemizes her deductions, you must generally also itemize your deductions. |
| If you were married on or before December 31, 2014, you can either be Married filing jointly or Married Filing separate for tax year 2014? You can probably qualify for Head of Household filing status if you can be considered unmarried for 2014 and otherwise meet the other requirements. You must provide over half of the cost of keeping up a home for a child, parent, or other qualifying relative to file as Head of Household. Among other things, the home you support must be the main home for your dependent. |
| If your child is considered temporarily absent from home, you can still claim him as living with you if he is away because of illness, vacation, education, military service or if the child is away on a business trip. |
| Copyright © 2014 [Hera's Income Tax School]. All Annual Filing Season Program rights reserved. |
| Revised: 12/14/14 |
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