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the other tests to be eligible to file as a head of household. Choice to treat spouse as resident. You are considered married if you choose to treat your spouse as a resident alien. See chapter 1 of Publication 519. Keeping Up a Home To qualify for head of household status, you must pay more than half of the cost of keeping up a home for the year. You can determine whether you paid more than half of the cost of keeping up a home by using Worksheet 1. Costs you include. Include in the cost of keeping up a home expenses such as rent, mortgage interest, real estate taxes, insurance on the home, repairs, utilities, and food eaten in the home. If you used payments you received under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or other public assistance programs to pay part of the cost of keeping up your home, you cannot count them as money you paid. However, you must include them in the total cost of keeping up your home to figure if you paid over half the cost. Costs you do not include. Do not include the cost of clothing, education, medical treatment, vacations, life insurance, or transportation. Also, do not include the rental value of a home you own or the value of your services or those of a member of your household. Qualifying Person See Table 4 to see who is a qualifying person. Any person not described in Table 4 is not a qualifying person. Example 1—child. Your unmarried son lived with you all year and was 18 years old at the end of the year. He did not provide more than half of his own support and does not meet the tests to be a qualifying child of anyone else. As a result, he is your qualifying child (see Qualifying Child, later) and, because he is sin­ gle, your qualifying person for head of house­ hold purposes. Example 2—child who is not qualifying person. The facts are the same as in Exam- ple 1 except your son was 25 years old at the end of the year and his gross income was $5,000. Because he does not meet the age test (explained later under Qualifying Child), your son is not your qualifying child. Because he does not meet the gross income test (explained later under Qualifying Relative), he is not your qualifying relative. As a result, he is not your qualifying person for head of household purpo­ ses. Example 3—girlfriend. Your girlfriend lived with you all year. Even though she may be your qualifying relative if the gross income and support tests (explained later) are met, she is not your qualifying person for head of house­ hold purposes because she is not related to you in one of the ways listed under Relatives who do not have to live with you. See Table 4. Example 4—girlfriend's child. The facts are the same as in Example 3 except your girl­ friend's 10­year­old son also lived with you all year. He is not your qualifying child and, be­ cause he is your girlfriend's qualifying child, he is not your qualifying relative (see Not a Qualify- ing Child Test, later). As a result, he is not your qualifying person for head of household purpo­ ses. Home of qualifying person. Generally, the qualifying person must live with you for more than half of the year. Special rule for parent. If your qualifying person is your father or mother, you may be eli­ gible to file as head of household even if your father or mother does not live with you. How­ ever, you must be able to claim an exemption for your father or mother. Also, you must pay more than half the cost of keeping up a home that was the main home for the entire year for your father or mother. If you pay more than half the cost of keeping your parent in a rest home or home for the eld­ erly, that counts as paying more than half the cost of keeping up your parent's main home. Death or birth. You may be eligible to file as head of household even if the qualifying per­ son who qualifies you for this filing status is born or dies during the year. To qualify you for head of household filing status, the qualifying person (as defined in Table 4) must be one of the following. Your qualifying child or qualifying relative who lived with you for more than half the part of the year he or she was alive. Your parent for whom you paid, for the en­ tire part of the year he or she was alive, more than half the cost of keeping up the home he or she lived in. Example. You are unmarried. Your mother, for whom you can claim an exemption, lived in an apartment by herself. She died on Septem­ ber 2. The cost of the upkeep of her apartment for the year until her death was $6,000. You paid $4,000 and your brother paid $2,000. Your brother made no other payments towards your mother's support. Your mother had no income. Because you paid more than half of the cost of keeping up your mother's apartment from Janu­ ary 1 until her death, and you can claim an ex­ emption for her, you can file as a head of household. Temporary absences. You and your quali­ fying person are considered to live together even if one or both of you are temporarily ab­ sent from your home due to special circumstan­ ces such as illness, education, business, vaca­ tion, or military service. It must be reasonable to assume the absent person will return to the home after the temporary absence. You must continue to keep up the home during the ab­ sence. Kidnapped child. You may be eligible to file as head of household even if the child who is your qualifying person has been kidnapped. You can claim head of household filing status if all the following statements are true. 1. The child is presumed by law enforcement authorities to have been kidnapped by someone who is not a member of your family or the child's family. 2. In the year of the kidnapping, the child lived with you for more than half the part of the year before the kidnapping. 3. You would have qualified for head of household filing status if the child had not been kidnapped. This treatment applies for all years until the earliest of: 1. The year the child is returned, Cost of Keeping Up a Home Worksheet 1. Keep for Your Records

Amount You Paid Total Cost Property taxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ $ Mortgage interest expense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Utility charges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Repairs/maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Property insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Food eaten in the home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Other household expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Totals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ $ Minus total amount you paid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( ) Amount others paid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ If the total amount you paid is more than the amount others paid, you meet the requirement of paying more than half the cost of keeping up the home. Publication 501 (2014) Page 9