Filing Status Your filing status is used in determining whether you must file areturn, your standard deduction, and the correct tax. It may alsodetermine whether you can claim certain deductions and credits. Thefiling status you can choose depends partly on your marital status onthe last day of your tax year. Marital status.If you are considered unmarried, your filing status is single or,if you meet certain requirements, head of household or qualifyingwidow(er). If you are considered married, your filing status is eithermarried filing a joint return or married filing a separate return. Forinformation about the single and qualifying widow(er) filing statuses,see Publication 501. Considered unmarried.You are considered unmarried for the whole year if either of thefollowing applies. You have obtained a final decree of divorce or separatemaintenance by the last day of your tax year. You must followyour state law to determine if you are divorced or legallyseparated. Exception. If you and your spouse obtain a divorcein one year for the sole purpose of filing tax returns as unmarriedindividuals, and at the time of divorce you intend to remarry eachother and do so in the next tax year, you and your spouse must file asmarried individuals. You have obtained a decree of annulment, whichholds that no valid marriage ever existed. You must file amendedreturns for all tax years affected by the annulment that are notclosed by the period of limitations. The period of limitationsgenerally does not end until 3 years after the due date of youroriginal return. On the amended return you will change your filingstatus to single, or if you meet certain requirements, head ofhousehold. Considered married.You are considered married for the whole year if you are separatedbut you have not obtained a final decree of divorce or separatemaintenance by the last day of your tax year. An interlocutory decreeis not a final decree. Exception.If you live apart from your spouse, under certain circumstances youmay be considered unmarried and can file as head of household. SeeHead of Household, later. Joint Return If you are married, you and your spouse can choose to file a jointreturn. If you file jointly, you both must include all your income,exemptions, deductions, and credits on that return. You can file ajoint return even if one of you had no income or deductions. TaxTip: If both you and your spouse have income, you should usually figureyour tax on both a joint return and separate returns to see whichgives you the lower tax. To file a joint return, at least one of you must be a U.S. citizenor resident at the end of the tax year. If either of you was anonresident alien at any time during the tax year, you can file ajoint return only if you agree to treat the nonresident spouse as aresident of the United States. This means that your combined worldwideincomes are subject to U.S. income tax. These rules are explained inPublication 519, U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens. Signing a joint return.Both you and your spouse must sign the return, or it will not beconsidered a joint return. Joint and individual liability.Both you and your spouse are responsible, jointly and individually,for the tax and any interest or penalty due on your joint return. Thismeans that one spouse may be held liable for all the tax due even ifall the income was earned by the other spouse. Divorced taxpayers.If you are divorced, you are still jointly and individuallyresponsible for any tax, interest, and penalties due on a joint returnfor a tax year ending before your divorce. This responsibility applieseven if your divorce decree states that your former spouse will beresponsible for any amounts due on previously filed joint returns. Relief from joint liability.In some cases, one spouse may be relieved of liability for tax,interest, and penalties for items of the other spouse which wereincorrectly reported on a joint return. You can ask for relief nomatter how small the liability. There are three types of relief available. Innocent spouse relief, which may apply to all jointfilers. Separation of liability, which may apply to joint filers whoare divorced, widowed, legally separated, or have not lived togetherfor the past 12 months. Equitable relief, which applies to all joint filers. Innocent spouse relief and separation of liability apply only toitems incorrectly reported on the return. If a spouse does not qualifyfor innocent spouse relief or separation of liability, the IRS maygrant equitable relief. Each of these kinds of relief is different, and they each havedifferent requirements. You must file Form 8857 to request any ofthese kinds of relief. Publication 971 explains these kinds of reliefand who may qualify for them. The relief from liability rules discussed here apply to taxliabilities arising after July 22, 1998, and tax liabilities arisingon or before July 22, 1998, that were unpaid as of that date. Tax refund applied to spouse's debts.The overpayment shown on your joint return may be used to pay thepast-due amount of your spouse's debts. You can get your share of therefund if you qualify as an injured spouse. Injured spouse.You are an injured spouse if all or part of your share of theoverpayment shown on your joint return was, or is expected to be,applied against your spouse's past-due child or spousal supportpayments or certain Federal debts such as student loans. You shouldfile Form 8379, Injured Spouse Claim and Allocation,if you meet all three of the following conditions. You are not required to pay the past-due amount. You received and reported income (such as wages, taxableinterest, etc.) on the joint return. You made and reported tax payments (such as federal incometax withheld from your wages or estimated tax payments), or youclaimed the earned income credit or other refundable credit on thejoint return. If all three of the above apply and you want your shareof the overpayment shown on the joint return refunded to you, completeForm 8379. If your main home was in a community property state, youcan file Form 8379 if only item 1 applies. Follow the instructions onthe form. Caution: Refunds that involve community property states must be dividedaccording to local law. If you live in a community property state inwhich all community property is subject to the debts of either spouse,your entire refund can be used to pay those debts. Separate Returns If you and your spouse file separate returns, you should eachreport only your own income, exemptions, deductions, and credits onyour individual return. You can file a separate return even if onlyone of you had income. For information on exemptions you can claim onyour separate return, see Exemptions, later. Community or separate income.If you live in a community property state and file a separatereturn, your income may be separate income or community income forincome tax purposes. For more information, see Community Income,later. Separate liability.If you and your spouse file separately, you each are responsibleonly for the tax due on your own return. Itemized deductions.If you and your spouse file separate returns and one of youitemizes deductions, the other spouse will not qualify for thestandard deduction and should also itemize deductions. Dividing itemized deductions.You may be able to claim itemized deductions on a separate returnfor certain expenses that you paid separately or jointly with yourspouse. See Table 1. Table 1. Itemized Deductions on Separate Returns Separate returns may give you a higher tax.Some married couples file separate returns because each wants to beresponsible only for his or her own tax. But in almost all instances,if you file separate returns, you will pay more combined federal taxthan you would with a joint return. This is because the tax rate ishigher for married persons filing separately. The following rules alsoapply if you file a separate return. You cannot take the credit for child and dependent careexpenses in most cases. You cannot take the earned income credit. You cannot take the exclusion or credit for adoptionexpenses in most instances. You cannot take the credit for higher education expenses orthe deduction for student loan interest. You cannot exclude the interest from qualified savings bondsthat you used for higher education expenses. If you lived with your spouse at any time during the taxyear: You cannot claim the credit for the elderly or the disabled,and You will have to include in income up to 85% of any socialsecurity or equivalent railroad retirement benefits youreceived. You will become subject to the limit on the child taxcredit, itemized deductions, and the phaseout of the deduction forpersonal exemptions at income levels that are half of those for ajoint return. You cannot roll over amounts from a traditional IRA into aRoth IRA during a year you file a separate return. Joint return after separate returns.If either you or your spouse file a separate return, you can changeto a joint return any time within 3 years from the due date (notincluding extensions) of the separate returns. This applies even ifeither of you filed as head of household. Use Form 1040X, AmendedU.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Separate returns after joint return.After the due date of your return, you and your spouse cannotfile separate returns if you previously filed a joint return. Exception.A personal representative for a decedent can change from a jointreturn elected by the surviving spouse to a separate return for thedecedent. The personal representative has one year from the due dateof the joint return to make the change. Head of Household You may be eligible to file as head of household if you meet therequirements discussed later. Filing as head of household has the following advantages. You can claim the standard deduction even if your spousefiles a separate return and itemizes deductions. Your standard deduction is higher than is allowed on asingle or married filing separate return. Your tax rate may be lower than it is on a single or marriedfiling separate return. You may be able to claim certain credits (such as child carecredit and earned income credit) you cannot claim on a married filingseparate return. You will become subject to the limit on itemized deductionsand the phaseout of the deduction for personal exemptions at incomelevels that are twice the levels for a single or a married filingseparate return. Requirements.You can file as head of household only if you were unmarried orconsidered unmarried on the last day of the year. You also must havepaid more than half the cost of keeping up a home that was the mainhome for more than half the year (except for temporary absences, suchas for school) for you and any of the following qualifying persons. Certain unmarried children. This includes yourunmarried child, grandchild, stepchild, foster child, or adoptedchild. A foster child must qualify as your dependent and must havelived in your home for the entire year. Certain married children. This includes yourmarried child, grandchild, stepchild, foster child, or adopted childfor whom you can claim an exemption, or for whom you could claim anexemption except that: By your written declaration you allow the noncustodialparent to claim the exemption, or The noncustodial parent provided at least $600 for thesupport of the dependent and claims the exemption under a pre-1985agreement. Other relatives. This includes any other relativefor whom you can claim an exemption. However, your parent for whom youcan claim an exemption does not have to live with you. (See Father or mother, later.) For a list of persons who arerelatives for purposes of these requirements, see 1. Member ofHousehold or Relationship Test under Exemption Tests,later. Your married child or other relative will not qualify you as ahead of household if you claim an exemption for that person under amultiple support agreement (discussed later). Father or mother.If your parent for whom you can claim an exemption does not livewith you, you can file as head of household if you paid more than halfthe cost of keeping up a home that was your parent's main home for theentire year. This includes paying more than half the costof keeping your parent in a rest home or home for the elderly. Considered unmarried.Even if you are married, you will be considered unmarried on thelast day of the year if you meet all of the followingtests. You do not file a joint return. You paid more than half the cost of keeping up your home forthe tax year. Your spouse did not live in your home during the last 6months of the tax year. Your home was, for more than half the year, the main home ofyour child, stepchild, adopted child, or for the entire year, the mainhome for your foster child. You generally must be able to claim anexemption for your child. However, you can still meet this test if youcannot claim an exemption for your child only because: By your written declaration you allow the noncustodialparent to claim the exemption, or The noncustodial parent provided at least $600 for thesupport of the child and claims the exemption under a pre-1985agreement. Nonresident alien spouse.If your spouse was a nonresident alien at any time during the taxyear, and you have not chosen to treat your spouse as a residentalien, you are considered unmarried for head of household purposes.However, your spouse is not a qualifying person for head of householdpurposes. You must have paid most of the cost of keeping up a homethat was the main home for most of the year for you and a qualifyingperson (other than your spouse) and meet the other requirements tofile as head of household. Keeping up a home.You are keeping up a home only if you pay more than half the costof its upkeep. This includes rent, mortgage interest, taxes, insuranceon the home, repairs, utilities, and food eaten in the home. This doesnot include the cost of clothing, education, medical treatment, ortransportation for any member of the household. For more information on filing as head of household, getPublication 501.