Im a single mom and im living with my boyfriend.I filed 2011 tax as a head of house hold claiming my child but i revived a letter from the irs to prove that i qualify the hoh filing status but the thing is i don't have any bills on my name.However i actually share the expenses with my boyfriend. What advice can u give me?
To meet the rules for filing HoH you must provide more than half the costs of furnishing a household for you and your child for more than half the year.
So what proof do you offer of the household costs for the year, and how much of those costs you paid?
How much is your AGI (The bottom figure on page 1 of your 1040 or
I'll assume the issue is not whether you have a qualifying person living with you in the household. In other words, the IRS is not questioning that you have a "Qualifying Child" who lived with you for more than 6 months in your household.
Therefore, they want your evidence that you provided more than half of the cost of maintaining the household where you and your qualifying child resided. The first thing thing you have to do is determine what the total cost of maintaining the household came to. You can find the definition of household costs in IRS Pub 501 in the section on Head of Household filing status.
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Typically, people don't keep a record of what they paid for food consumed on the premises. Therefore, you would have to make a reasonable guess as to how much was spent on the food consumed on the premises. Once you have the total household costs, you must provide evidence that you provided more than half of those expenses. Evidence usually takes the form of cancelled checks, bank statements and credit card statements plus some estimate of cash payments as many if not most people still use cash in the supermarket. Now.... if your boyfriend has been the one paying the rent, paying for utilities, paying for water and trash, etc., and you have been reimbursing him, then you will need proof of payment to him and the reason for the payment. As this is also hard to come by, you are left with sworn affidavits from both of you as to how the sharing arrangement was operated and the amounts paid.
It would also help, if your income was higher than his.
The IRS has a few forms that list the types of supporting documents they require in certain circumstances, such as FTHBC (first time home buyer) and AOC (American Opportunity Credit). Unfortunately, they do not have one for Head of Household status.
Form 886-H-DEP (Rev. 10-2008) lists some examples (excerpt below) to help prove support for dependency purposes. Although providing support and paying half of household costs are not the same thing, there is usually some overlap. Interestingly, they don't ask for any documentation for food costs (which would count for both support and HOH, but only food consumed in the home counts for HOH household expense).
Per the IRS pub that Alan referenced, the following items do NOT count for household support:
Schooling Clothing Doctor/medical Transportation Rental value of taxpayer's home (if owned)
The following items DO count:
Rent paid, or mortgage interest/property tax (not mortgage principal) Homeowner's/Renter's insurance Repairs Utilities Food consumed at home
Alan mentioned that "It would also help, if your income was higher than [your boyfriend's]". I'm not sure this would have any bearing on the situation, especially since the IRS cannot expect you to know your boyfriend's income, nor would they even know you live with your boyfriend, unless, as Alan mentions, all the bills and payments were made in his name, and you have to try to prove that you reimbursed him for those specific items that are included in household costs (and not the other costs of support, as listed above).
If your income as reported on the return appears too low to cover your household expenses claimed and other cash flow items, providing evidence as in the list below to show other, non-reportable income that you received should help.
A final comment, which you may not want to hear, is that perhaps you really did not qualify as HOH, and might be wasting your time trying to prove it.
======[IRS Form 886-H-DEP]======================== Note ? Send Us the Copies of the Following Documents as Proof You Provided More Than Half of Your Dependent?s Total Support: ***
? A statement of account from a child support agency.
? A statement from any government agency verifying the amount and type of benefits you and/or your dependent received for the year.
? Rental agreements or a statement showing the fair rental value of your residence (proof of lodging cost).
? Utility and repair bills (proof of household expenses) with canceled checks or receipts.
There is a good chance your income level triggered a second look. If your income was very low, it may appear that you would not be able to have provided for your support, let alone that of a child.
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