Idaho,
Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington and Wisconsin. Alaska could be
considered a community property state also depending on what the taxpayer
elects. Alaska gives their taxpayers the option to make their property
community property.
If you were married on or before December 31,
2014, you can either be Married filing jointly or Married Filing
separate for tax year 2014? However, you can probably qualify for Head of Household
filing status if you can be considered unmarried for 2014 and otherwise meet
the other requirements. You must provide over half of the cost of keeping
up a home for a child, parent, or other qualifying relative to
file as Head of Household. Among other things, the home you
support must be the main home for your dependent even if the dependent was
away for temporary purposes such as for school, illness, vacation, military
or business.
If your child is considered temporarily absent
from home, you can still claim him as living with you if he is
away because of illness, vacation, education, military service
or if the child is away on a business trip.
You may be eligible to file as Head of Household
even if the child who is your qualifying person has been
kidnapped. You can claim Head of Household filing status if the
child is presumed by law enforcement authorities to have been kidnapped by
someone who is not a member of your family or the child's family. Also in
the year of kidnapping, the child must have lived with you for more than
half of the year before the kidnapping. Additionally, you must have met the
requirements or would have met the Head of Household filing status
requirements if the child had not been kidnapped.
You may be eligible to file as Head of Household
if the individual who qualifies you for this filing status is
born or dies during the year. You are considered to have
provided more than half of the cost of keeping up a home for
this individual if you provided more than half the support for
the part of the year he or she was alive or half the cost of keeping up the
home he she lived in.
You standard deduction is zero if you are filing
Married Filing Separately and your spouse itemizes her deductions. For
example, Marvyn is married to Clara and for 2014, due to
some marital problems, they filed married filing separate. Clara
will itemize her deductions of $11,000 because she had
qualifying car expenses. Marvyn wants to use the standard
deduction on his tax return, because his total itemized
deductions amount is only $4,100 for 2014 and it is less than
the standard deduction amount. Since Clara will itemize her
deductions, Marvyn also has to itemize his deductions and use the $4,100
amount.
The standard deduction for a
dependent is generally $1,000 or the dependent's earned income plus $350.
The results cannot be more than the regular standard deduction plus $350.
For a single individual who's earned income plus the $350 is to be more than
$6,100 (if that would be the regular standard deduction if the individual
would not be a dependent) then the dependent's standard deduction cannot be
more than $6,100.
For Head of Household filing purposes, if your
father is your qualifying relative and he does not live with
you, you must pay more than half the cost of keeping up his home
for the entire year. Also, in some
circumstances, you do not have to claim a child as dependent to qualify for
the Head of Household filing
