Intuit Community Champion

Question

Unmarried Couple Living Together - Both HOH Status?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
April 6, 2025
4 replies
52 views

Unmarried couple live together with their shared children. One child was five in 2024, the other was three. Can they both claim a child on their respective returns and both claim HOH. Based on my research, as long as they both meet the criteria (which they do), they can...but would appreciate input.

ProSeries Professional

BobKamman

Level 15

How can both of them be paying more than half the household costs? It's possible to have two households under one roof, but not in situations like this.

GodFather

Author

Intuit Community Champion

Bob...I've never encountered this situation, and my initial reaction was no. With that said, I did research and found this article. That's why I'm seeking input.

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/family/guide-to-filing-taxes-as-head-of-household/L4Nx6DYu9

Can two people file Head of Household on their return?

Two people cannot file as Head of Household on the same return. If they are married, then they typically have to either file as Married Filing Jointly on the same return or as Married Filing Separately on separate returns.

Two people can both claim Head of Household filing status while living in the same home. However, both need to meet the criteria necessary to be eligible for Head of Household status:

You both are unmarried.
You both are able to claim your own qualifying dependent.
That dependent resides at the same residence for more than half the year. (In the case of a parent, they can live elsewhere. However, you still have to provide them with at least half of their support.)
They both have to pay more than half of the cost of keeping up the portion of the home for themselves and their dependent(s).

IRonMaN

Level 15

I think they are referring to cases where there are more than one family in a home. In your case you only have one family and therefore you can only have one head.

Slava Ukraini!

PATAX

Level 12

@GodFather Godfather, quick finder and the tax book have excellent flow charts, etc on this, take a look and you will see that Bob and Iron Man are correct.

T

TaxGuyBill

Level 15

Living in one home doesn't disqualify it, but they would need to have "separate households".

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/1998-041.pdf

G

Giammusso

Level 3

Shared children is the sticking point here. If they were unmarried and lived together with 2 kids where each kid was from a previous relationship - then you could make a case for HOH but could have a hard time justifying it if it was ever flagged. But since from your info the kids are from their relationship together they won't qualify.

T

Ty318

Level 2

What if two roommates both have their own dependants, split the bills 50/50 , and purchase food separately. Can they both file HOH? I've ready several articles that says they can.

A

athaureaux6

Level 7

I remembered years ago I have a somehow similar case but with a big difference. Two single mothers with a kid lived together as roommates. I remembered that for one reason or another one of them, the second that filed that year, was sent a letter denying the HoH status because somebody already claimed in the same address. At that time, I appealed the decision, I had to send a lot of information about the two taxpayers, I sent a FMV of the rent in the neighborhood claiming they could pay alone and a lot of other supporting documents. At the end, it took a long time, but both were accepted the status. But in the question posted today, I do not know what to say, I have never had a case like that. It will be interesting to know what is going to happen.

Can two people file Head of Household on their return?

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