[Jaaade]

ok guys. this whole thing has a grey area that is not addressed at all by the IRS. just spoke with the irs advocate line. they said i do not qualify for an appoitnemtn with them but they had a designated department for status questions. according to the agent’s opinion BOTH scenarios are correct ( dynasty and sara .. AND renee). so the guy took me thru 3 qualifying questions. 1 HoH for myself, 2. Filing status of my brother, 3. Dependent qualification of my brother. Answers are 1. Yes I qualify. 2. He would file single and check dependent because he did not pay more than 50% of household expenses. 3. he does NOT qualify as dependent because he made more than the 4K. the agent said the best scenario is if the software lets you file as H0H without asking for dependent, you can file as HoH. and my bro will NOT check the dependent box.

what a darn mess lol

[Jaaade]

Renee. the link to the irs tool is not working. would you be able to tell me what page to go to to find it? i tried some of the keywords in the hyperlink but didn’t work.

[Jaaade]

Renee you completely have my scenario down. exactly how I understood it. Thank you for that worksheet! Very helpful. So Sarah and Dynasty, I hope you can chime in. It looks like Renee will be doing HoH even with a dependent with income over 4k. Any thoughts?

Amber, that was also my other question if I decided to claim HoH. thank you.

Man what a headache lol.

[Jaaade]

thanks again very much guys

[Jaaade]

so i guess what they could not explain was his income? they went thru a dependent qualification questionnaire and income was not among them. very interesting. so IRS seems to not know their own rules.

so the head of household not only depends on you having contributed more than 50% but also on the income of your dependent. so that was simple. why couldn’t they say that? very very strange.

thanks guys for your patience in explaining this. seems simple enough when you guys said it.. but i’m not sure why it was made so convoluted in my conversation this morning with them.

[Jaaade]

i’m not trying to claim him. i am trying to claim credit for paying more than 50% of household which irs is saying i can.

[Jaaade]

thanks for the reply dynasty. no .. no other dependents. IRS told me i qualify for head of household.. what they could not tell me is if my brother which is part of the household i supported more than 50% of the time in 2018 can also file a separate tax return or is he considered a dependent because of the head of household situation i’m putting him in?

so dynasty, you are actually saying i don’t even qualify for head of household?

[Jaaade]

thank you lots for your reply. his income is $23923.

this is a great chart i hadn’t seen.. and this is why this is so confusing. there is a disconnect here in my head that i am not getting. when people refer to “claiming kids as dependents and getting back a refund” is that the same as being head of household? i thought head of household was a different thing entirely where you can get a tax credit for paying more of the household share while everyone else in the home continued on with their own tax filings etc.. there’s something i’m missing here. i just don’t know what it it. the IRS lady went thru questions to see if i fit the head of household scenario and i do. but according to this chart, there is a dependent disconnect because i do fit the house hold criteria but the dependent does not qualify in this criteria. i am SO confused.

thoughts?

thanks again for your reply

[Author]

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