Head of Household

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Head of Household is a filing status for individual United States taxpayers. It provides preferential tax rates and a larger standard deduction for single people caring for qualifying dependents.

To use the Head of Household filing status, a taxpayer must:

1. Be unmarried or considered unmarried at the end of the year.
2. Have paid more than half the cost of keeping up a home for the tax year (either one's own home or the home of a qualifying parent).
3. Usually have a qualifying person who lived with the head in the home for more than half of the tax year unless the qualifying person is a dependent parent.

Advocates of the head of household filing status argue that it is an important financial benefit to single parents, and particularly single mothers, who have reduced tax burdens as a result of the status.^[1] Critics, however, argue that it is poorly targeted, delivering larger benefits to those with high incomes and smaller benefits to those with low incomes; and point out that it creates marriage penalties and adds additional complexity to the tax code.^[2]