qualifying
child or qualifying relative who qualifies you to claim the head of
household filing status. The child must have lived with you for more than
six months of the year and you must be able to claim an exemption for the
qualifying child. If you have a qualifying person instead, your qualifying
can be a parent who does not have to live with you. In either case, you must
have supported a home for the qualifying person for more than 50 percent of
the support of the home. If the qualifying person is your parent, the parent
can be your qualifying relative even if you cannot claim an exemption for
your parent if the only reason that keeps you from claiming the parent is
the fact that the parent earned more than the amount allowed to claim an
exemption.
You were not in
a registered domestic partnership if your registered domestic partnership
was legally terminated under a final decree of dissolution. Neither a
petition for termination nor an interlocutory decree of termination is the
same as a final decree. Until the final decree is issued, a registered
domestic partnership remains in a registered domestic partnership.
An individual
who is single, married or in a registered domestic partnership, can meet the
requirements to be considered head of household. If the individual is
married or is in a registered domestic partnership, the individual must meet
the requirements. Unless he or she does so, he or she cannot be considered
unmarried or not in a registered domestic partnership for tax purposes.
A same sex
couple can be in a registered domestic partnership if the individual files
the appropriate paperwork with the State of California. A registered
domestic partner is a person who has filed a Declaration of Domestic
Partnership with the California Secretary of State. A person is a registered
domestic partnership has the same benefits and rights as do married
individuals in the State of California. Therefore, same sex individuals can
file their returns as married individual and enjoy the same tax benefits as
married individuals who file as married filing jointly.
The 2014 SDI
(or VPDI) limit is $101,636.
You must be
entitled to claim a dependent exemption credit for your parent to be head of
household. That is true if your parent meets the requirements of a
qualifying relative. That is also true if you have paid more than half the
cost of keeping up a home that was your parent's main home for the entire
year. Your parent's main home could have been his or her own home or any
other living accommodation.
For 2014, you
were married or an RDP at the end of the year if you were married, of
course. You are not considered married at the end of 2014 if you received a
domestic partnership, or you filed a Notice of Termination of Domestic
Partnership with the California Secretary of State and the six-month waiting
period for the notice to become final has passed. You are considered married
if your spouse/RDP died in 2014 and you did not remarry or enter into
another registered domestic partnership.
There are five
tests which you must normally meet in order claim a dependent on your tax
return. You must meet the support test, gross income test, member of
household or relationship test, the joint return test and the citizenship or
residency test. The support test is met if you provide more than 50 percent
of the persons support in the year. The gross income test is met if your
child does not make more than the federal personal exemption amount for the
year. If your child makes more than this amount which is $3,950 for tax year
2014, then you usually cannot claim this child’s exemption or claim the
child as a dependent. The child must usually be related to you legally or by
blood and live in your household for more than six months of the year.
Furthermore, the child must not have file a joint tax return if done so,
there would not be any additional tax owed than if the child filed as
single. The residency test is met if your child is a citizen of the United
States, a U.S. resident alien or a resident of
