Home / Dependents and My Filing Status
This section discusses information for people who are filing independently; that is, they are not a dependent of anyone else.
If you are a claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return, as most students are, please refer to the link:
Claiming you independence by your personal exemption, determining if you can claim any dependents, and choosing your filing status is the cornerstone of filing your income tax return. This section shows how you can save on your taxes by claiming everything you are entitled to claim.
The IRS gives each person with a valid social security number a personal exemption from taxes. For this tax year, the personal exemption is $3,200. This means that the first $3,200 you earn is not taxed; or put another way, each exemption is a $3200 tax deduction. This deduction reduces your taxable income and means you pay less tax.
In addition to your personal exemption, if you have a person whom you can claim as a dependent, you are entitled to a dependency exemption. A dependency exemption is worth a $3,200 tax deduction, same amount as the personal exemption.
Also, dependents may allow you to claim a tax advantaged filing status (such as Head of Household), and certain other deductions and tax credits reducing your taxes further.
Summary: There are two types of exemptions: personal exemptions and dependent exemptions. While each type of exemption is worth the same amount ($3,200), different claiming rules apply to each type.
This section introduces three and links to two major topics.
Generally, an individual taxpayer may claim one personal exemption for himself/ herself, unless she/he is eligible to be claimed as a dependent on another person's return. If you can be claimed as a dependent on someone else's return, you cannot claim your personal exemption. What happens here, as in the case of a student, is that your personal exemption of $3,200 is transferred to the person who is claiming you as a dependent.
A spouse is never considered your dependent. If you are considered married and filing jointly with your spouse, each of you claim your own personal exemption on your joint tax return.
In the tax program, you claim your personal exemption by entering your name and social security number, and checking the box that you can not be claimed on another's return. That's it. The tax program does all the calculations.
You claim your dependents in much the same way as you do your personal exemption. In the tax program, you enter the dependent person's name, social security number, date of birth, the dependent's relationship to you (e.g.,child, mother, sister), and the number of month's the dependent lived with you. That's it. The tax program does all the calculations, and will automatically claim for you the tax credits (earned income tax credit, child tax, additional child tax) you deserve. How to claim other tax credits are explained in the section, Reduce My Taxes...Personal Tax Benefits, located on the navigation bar on your left.
Beginning with this year's taxes, there are new uniform rules to determine whether you can claim an exemption for a dependent. The rules are pretty much common sense, but since alot of money is on the table, make sure you are entitled to claim whom you do claim. These new rules are explained in the section, Do I have a qualifying dependent?
In general, your filing status depends on whether you are considered married or not married. Under Federal law, a marriage means only a legal union between a man and a woman as husband and wife. Under some State's law, this is not the case and these states sanction Civil Unions. A discussion on Civil Union filings is found in the State Income Tax Information tab of the navigation menu.
Choosing the correct filing status is very important because it will determine (1) your tax rate (different filing statuses have different rates), (2) the amount of your standard deduction (different filing statuses have different standard deductions), and (3) whether you can claim certain tax deductions and credits (yes, different ones have different ones).
Sometimes choosing a filing status is simple. Other times, because of life events, choosing a filing status is a little more difficult. The following section, Choosing a Filing Status describes the 5 filing status options from which can you choose.
