{"id":1613,"date":"2020-01-14T12:58:01","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T17:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etax.com\/blog\/?p=1613"},"modified":"2020-01-14T12:58:01","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T17:58:01","slug":"you-are-not-required-to-claim-a-dependent-for-qualified-widower-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etax.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/14\/you-are-not-required-to-claim-a-dependent-for-qualified-widower-status\/","title":{"rendered":"You Are Not Required to Claim a Dependent for Qualified Widow(er) Status"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">If your child lives in your household but makes significant income, whereby you can not claim him or her as a dependent, you can still file as a Qualified Widow(er).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">A qualified widow or widower status is for people who have recently lost a spouse and are at home supporting a child.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">If your spouse died in the tax year and you could have used the tax filing status &#8220;married filing jointly&#8221; before his or her death (even if you didn&#8217;t actually file jointly), then, if you have a dependent child you can use the qualified widow or widower status for the next two years. For example, if your spouse died in 2017 and you haven&#8217;t remarried, you can file in 2017 jointly and then file in 2018 and 2019 as a qualified widow or widower.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Children are key. If the children are already out of the house when your spouse dies, this status will probably not work for you, because you have to have a dependent child or stepchild (except for a foster child)<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>living with you. You must also provide for half the household expenses during the tax year. If the only reasons you cannot claim your child as a dependent because the child earned more than $4,200 in 2019<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>or filed a joint tax return, you can still qualify for this filing status.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The qualified widow or widower status affords you to file as if you were married. That gives you a much higher standard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.etax.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/19\/new-auto-loan-interest-deduction-how-to-save-up-to-10000-on-your-taxes-2025-2028\/\">deduction<\/a> and a better situation with tax brackets than if you filed as a single.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If your child lives in your household but makes significant income, whereby you can not claim him or her as a dependent, you can still file as a Qualified Widow(er). A qualified widow or widower status is for people who have recently lost a spouse and are at home supporting a child. If your spouse [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[20,627,628,629,630],"class_list":["post-1613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-filing-status-2","tag-dependent","tag-qualified-widow","tag-qualified-widower","tag-widow","tag-widower"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>You Are Not Required to Claim a Dependent for Qualified Widow(er) Status<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If your child lives in your household but you can not claim him or her as a dependent, you can still file as a Qualified Widow(er).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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