Head Of Household Qualifying Relative

Question: amending 2006 return with change in “Status” to Head of Household help?

I am amending my 2006 return, as I did not put that I was head of household. I have a qualifying relative -my daughter – who was 25 April 10th, 2006. I cannot claim her as a dependant since she does not meet all the requirments, so my exemptions stay a 1… However she was a “qualifying relative”, becasue she did not earn more than $3100 in 2006, was temporarily away at school, and I paid more than 1/2 her support for the year. So this I all know. I am doing the 1040X, but do not know where to show the change in status, and how to compute the refund I should? be due. Where on the 1040X do you give this information? Or do you just add the info on the back of the form and the IRS computes it? Many thanks.

Answer: Since your daughter is your Qualifying Relative and is a blood relation to you, she does in fact qualify you for HOH if you claim her and you would otherwise have filed as single.

The rules changed in 2005 and now you actually need a dependent to claim HOH and most adult children won’t qualify because their income is too high.

When you do the 1040x, you get to do every single line.
There are questions A/B/C above the numbered lines. C is where you show single on the original return; HOH on the amended.

The sanest way to do the form is to fill in column a from your tax return. Then fill in a blank form (get one at irs.gov–just put 2006 in the search box and follow the links) to get the numbers for column C (just don’t send the form in). (Don’t forget the education credits too since you wouldn’t have claimed one before, attach form 8863.)

Then line by line subtract column a from column C. Negatives MUST go in ()–otherwise the IRS could bill you for the amount of your refund.

For example, line 2-4 will look something like this:
$5150 $2400 $7550
nnnnn ($2400) nnnnn
$3300 $3300 $6600
nnnnn ($5700) nnnnn