Simple Tips To Help You When Determining Your Filing Status

Eight Tips to Help You Determine Your Filing Status

Before you file your federal income tax returns, you must first determine you filing status. There are 5 filing statuses: Married Filing Jointly, Single, Married Filing Separately, Qualifying Widow or Widower with Dependent Child and Head of Household. Your filing status is normally used to determine your standard deductions, filing requirements, eligibility for certain deductions and credits. It also helps in computing correct taxes.

It is important to note that some people may have more than one status. The following are 8 tips to help you when filing your returns. These tips will help you determine your status according to IRS regulations.

Your marital status for the entire year is determined by your marital status on the final day of the tax year.

If you qualify for several filing statuses, choose the one with the lowest tax obligation.

Single filing status applies to you if you are divorced, unmarried or legally separated.

The filing status for married couples is Married Filing Jointly.

If your spouse passed away during the year, you can still use Married Filing Jointly as your filing status for that year.

A married couple might use Married Filing Separately as their individual filing statuses when filing their returns individually.

If your spouse died during the tax year and left you with children who still depend on you, you can choose Qualifying Widow or Widower with Dependent Child provided you did not remarry during the same year.

There is a lot of information regarding tax return filing that the average taxpayer may not know about. For more information about filing your federal return, visit www.irs.gov.

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