Correct Filing Status | TaxConnections

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Written by Milton Boothe | Posted in Income Tax • Individual • IRS

An individual’s tax refund or tax liability depends primarily upon two variables: the individual’s filing status and the taxable income.

Choosing the correct filing status, therefore, is very important, and is really the first step that you take in ensuring that you will end up with an accurately prepared tax return. You need to appreciate this, because your filing status determines a number of very important things, such as; filing requirements, tax deductions, tax credits, tax rate, and ultimately, your correct tax refund or tax liability. In general, filing status depends on whether a taxpayer is considered unmarried or married, and this is determined based on your marital on the last day of the tax year. For federal tax purposes, a marriage means only a legal union between a man and a woman as husband and wife. The word “spouse” means a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

You must choose from one of five filing statuses, and you must know which one is correct for you. The five filing statuses are: (a) Single, (b) Married Filing Jointly, (c) Married Filing Separately, (d) Head of Household, and (e) Qualifying Widow/Widower. If you discover that more than one filing status applies to you, you may choose the one that gives you the lowest tax rate.

In the subsequent articles to follow, we will proceed to look at each of these filing statuses.

The primary objective of this article is to empower taxpayers to learn to do their own taxes. For information on how to choose the correct filing status, grab yourself a copy of “Doing Your Own Taxes is as Easy as 1, 2, 3,” authored by Milton Boothe ($6.98) on TaxConnections.com.

Milton Boothe

Milton G Boothe is an IRS Enrolled Agent with over twenty years of tax and financial accounting experience, including several years at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is also a British certified Chartered Accountant. He is currently employed in private tax practices where he helps people resolve their tax problems, minimize their taxes, and routinely represents the interests of taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service. As an Enrolled Agent (EA) Boothe is a federally-authorized tax practitioner who has technical expertise in the field of taxation and who is empowered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to represent taxpayers before all administrative levels of the IRS for audits, collections, and appeals.
Milton G Boothe is also the author of several tax publications, wherein he encourages people to empower themselves by learning to do their own taxes.