Can my partner and I both file as heads-of-household while living in the same house?

You're in luck! Both you and your girlfriend can file as head-of-household even while living in the same residence. The IRS doesn't require each head-of-household to maintain a separate physical home - what matters is that you each financially maintain a household for a qualifying dependent. Since you have your daughter and your girlfriend has her three children as qualifying dependents, you both meet that requirement. Also important is that you're not married to each other, which would disqualify you both from HOH status. The fact that you have a clear financial arrangement where each of you pays distinct portions of the household expenses helps your case. You're effectively maintaining separate households under one roof. The mortgage being in your name isn't an issue as long as your girlfriend is paying her fair share of housing costs. Just make sure you're both meeting the other requirements for HOH status - like providing more than half the cost of keeping up the home for the year and having a qualifying dependent who lives with you for more than half the year.

After my divorce, I was completely lost when it came to figuring out my taxes with my new blended family situation. My partner and I were in a similar situation - both with kids, sharing a house but not married. I found this amazing tool called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that actually analyzed our specific situation and confirmed we could both claim HOH status. The tool went through all the IRS requirements and explained exactly how to properly document our separate financial contributions to the household, which was super important. It basically confirmed what that first commenter said, but also gave us specific guidance for our situation. It was a huge relief after getting so much conflicting advice from friends and even some tax preparers.

Just wanted to update - I tried taxr.ai after posting my question here and wow, it actually cleared everything up for me! It analyzed my tax situation with my girlfriend, our shared child, and her child from her previous relationship. Turns out our current filing strategy wasn't optimal. The tool showed me that since I provide over half the household expenses, I could qualify for HOH with our shared child, which gives a better tax benefit than filing single. My girlfriend can still claim HOH with her other child. It even showed us exactly how to document our financial contributions to satisfy an audit if needed. Worth checking out if you're in any kind of blended family situation - saved us a bunch of confusion and probably money too!

Been there! When my partner and I combined households (we both had kids too), we tried for WEEKS to get through to the IRS to confirm our filing status. Couldn't get anyone on the phone ever. Finally found this service called Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) that got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 15 minutes. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c - basically skips the hold time nightmare. The agent confirmed that yes, unmarried partners can BOTH claim HOH status in the same house as long as each person has their qualifying dependent and contributes to household expenses. Just make sure you're documenting who pays what for which kids because that's what the IRS will look at if there's ever a question.

Ok I need to eat my words from earlier. After posting that skeptical comment, I decided to just try Claimyr myself because I've been trying to reach the IRS for MONTHS about an audit letter. And...it actually worked. I was connected to an IRS rep in about 20 minutes, which is insane considering I had spent literally 4+ hours on previous attempts and never got through. The agent confirmed my head-of-household status in my somewhat similar situation (I share a house with my sister and we both have kids). Apparently they use some kind of automated system that keeps trying lines until it finds one that works. I don't know how exactly, but it did save me hours of frustration and hold music.

Tax preparer here - this HOH question comes up all the time with blended families. The confusion happens because people think "household" means physical structure, but for tax purposes it refers to financial responsibility for dependents. Key points for the original poster: - You and your partner can BOTH claim HOH if you each have qualifying dependents - You need to be able to show you each provide more than half the cost of keeping up the home for your respective dependents - Document everything! Keep records of who pays what expenses - If audited, the IRS will want to see how expenses are divided for each "household" within your home

Wait, I'm confused about one thing - if the mortgage is in your name, how can she claim she's providing more than half the cost of keeping up the home? Isn't mortgage the biggest expense?

My ex and I tried this one year when we were still living together but separated (weird time, don't judge lol). We both claimed HOH and the IRS flagged and audited us. They made one of us change to single filing status. The issue was we couldn't clearly document separate "households" within the same house. We shared too many expenses 50/50 including for the kids. If you're going to do this, make VERY clear documentation of what portion of expenses is for each "household" and keep them as separate as possible.

My situation is a little different - I live with my brother and his kid, and I have my own child. We're both single parents. Our tax guy said only one of us can claim HOH because we share common areas like kitchen, living room etc. Is that right? Now I'm confused after reading all these replies...

I'm in a very similar situation and was worried about this exact issue! My partner and I have been living together for about a year now - I have two kids from my previous marriage and he has one. We've been keeping our finances separate and both filing as HOH, but I was always nervous we might be doing something wrong. Reading through all these responses is really reassuring. The key seems to be documentation - we've been keeping detailed records of who pays what portion of household expenses, and we allocate costs based on household size (my kids and me vs. his kid and him). One thing that helped us was setting up a simple spreadsheet at the beginning of the year to track our contributions. We note the mortgage portion each of us covers, utilities, groceries allocated by household, etc. It makes tax time way less stressful when you have everything documented from the start. Thanks for asking this question - it's helped clarify a lot of confusion I had about shared living situations!