Franchise Tax Board Auditing ‘Head of Household’

Each year FTB reviews tax returns of taxpayers who claim the Head of Household filing status because the qualifications are commonly misunderstood. You can generally claim the Head of Household filing status on your tax return if you are unmarried, have cared for a qualified person for more than half the year, and paid more than half the cost of maintaining your home.

Taxpayers who can claim this filing status benefit from a higher standard deduction and lower tax rates as compared to the single filing status. More than 2 million California taxpayers use this filing status each year.

Taxpayers who do not qualify will have their tax reassessed at either the single or married-filing-separate filing status. Nearly 28,000 taxpayers who used this status last year did not meet its requirements and were issued $30 million in tax assessments.